


walk alone or run away

by tozier



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Explicit Sexual Content, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Minor Mike Hanlon/Stanley Uris, eddie is on the track team and richie is a soccer star
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-02 07:18:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 46,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14539509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tozier/pseuds/tozier
Summary: Richie Tozier is Eddie Kaspbrak’s rival. At least, that’s what Eddie says to everyone who will listen—including Richie most of the time.Richie Tozier is a man, not of lies, but of half-truths and truths said too plainly out in the open that they sound like lies to the untrained ear. He does not lie—he lets others lie for him.





	walk alone or run away

**Author's Note:**

> title from let’s get married by bleachers.
> 
> there's a playlist for this fic [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/gqefiixgfkz6en12ub8bpr3zr/playlist/5kEgc4uHVrTNY6cvO6Vj4K?si=GOnhQ9muQGK9TeOKXvpv7Q).

Richie Tozier is Eddie Kaspbrak’s rival. At least, that’s what Eddie says to everyone who will listen—including Richie most of the time.

If backed into a corner, Eddie will vehemently deny any and all attraction to the loudmouthed goalie of Stanford University's soccer team. _Richie? Richie Tozier? Ugh. I’d never go for him, I can’t believe you would even_ suggest _that. I hate that he always points at me in the stands at every game—it’s so embarrassing. I’d rather suck the dick of Donald fucking Trump than let him anywhere near me. That’s how much I hate Richie. I’d suck that orange asshole’s tiny fucking dick as long as it gets Richie Tozier far, far away from me._

He is, of course, lying. Eddie Kaspbrak loves to lie, though he’d lie about that, too, if asked about it. Lying is just another sport to Eddie—not a sprint, but a 10,000 meter race. He can’t go too big or extravagant with lies; lying is the kind of thing you need to be in for the long haul and Eddie knows that. He has to pace himself with lies—he learned that from a young age with his mother. Lies are something he knows like the back of his hand, and he feels just as comfortable lying as he does on the turf in his Adidas.

This is not to say that he’s particularly proud of classifying himself as a liar. He’s good at it, sure, and he likes the rush he gets every time somebody believes something he says—a product of being a closeted gay kid growing up in a provincial town. Whenever his mother would ask him how he slept, he would always say _well, Mommy, thank you,_ because it was easier than admitting he was up half the night with nightmares and spent the rest of it staring out his window into the dark night, shaking and terrified that he was on the brink of death via burglar or monster or one of the many bullies who tortured him day in and day out for being a _queerboy_ despite the fact that he was out to nobody in his town. It was only until he managed to convince his mother to allow him to go to Stanford because they gave him the most scholarship money and because _it’d be the most incredible opportunity, Mommy. Don’t you want me to succeed?_ Yeah, Eddie learned a thing or two about manipulation from his time with his mother as well. This, he’s even less proud of.

After Eddie was alerted by Derry’s local pharmacist that he does not in fact have asthma, that all his medications and inhalers were merely placebos, fakes, he took up running. At first, it was just to get out of the house, to tire himself out enough to fall asleep at night, to remind himself that his body is _his_ and not a product of his mother’s controlling, overbearing love. But then it quickly became something he loved and didn't want to be without. The burn in his lungs, the tiredness in his muscles—Eddie found it all addictive. So he joined the track team. And he was _good._ He knows he would've never gotten into Stanford without his running putting him on the map, so he wasn’t upset in the least when the college told him he had to join the track team in college as well. It was all he could've ever dreamed of and more, getting out from underneath his mother’s thumb.

But Sonia Kaspbrak’s influence is still present in all of the moves he makes, even after nearly three full years of being away from home. 3,000 miles has not even been enough to escape her. Eddie learned from his mother that one loves through lies, and that’s how he knows that he loves Richie Tozier: because he loves him so much, he has to lie about it or else people would know the truth about him. They would see the fact that Richie has softened his heart and changed him from someone who thinks that love can only be mixed with hate. Eddie does not hate Richie. He never has. Richie is just the first person to ever make Eddie feel like he was _alive._

Eddie gets the same feeling he does around Richie when he runs. The gasping breaths, the sweat on his skin, the belief that he is finally good enough, all of this is how Richie makes him feel. Richie is every shin splint, every race won, every pulled muscle, every mile he’s ever run. Richie reminds him that he is not just a product of manipulation, but a real, breathing, living person. Every time Richie makes him want to scream with frustration, with pleasure, with laughter, every time he brings Eddie a bouquet of wildflowers from one of the small fields on campus, every time Richie calls him _sweetheart_ or _darling_ or _sunshine_ —all of these things make Eddie’s heart rattle in his chest and bang against his ribs in a way that reminds him he’s really, truly fucking alive.

Eddie never wants to give that up. But he also knows that nobody can ever know about it.  

 

Richie Tozier is a man, not of lies, but of half-truths and truths said too plainly out in the open that they sound like lies to the untrained ear. He does not lie—he lets others lie for him.

Richie hides a lot of who he is. He doesn’t think too hard about why, if it’s a product of childhood neglect, deep-seated insecurities or simply because it’s more fun this way. He thinks maybe it’s all of these combined, because Richie, unlike Eddie, truly enjoys the process of these half-truths. He loves to watch people squirm and shake because they cannot figure him out. He is sometimes afraid that if anyone dug far enough into him, if they removed the masks and the Voices, they’d find nothing at all but hollowness.

Richie has always been talented with sports—they were the only thing he ever felt he succeeded at as a kid, and his coaches and teachers confirmed this all his life.

_You’re wasting your time with school, kid. You’re too talented on the field to bother with books._

_Richard, you need to work harder. You’re never going to amount to anything if you don’t at least try in class._

_Tozier, you need to work harder. Keep running. C’mon, another lap. I don’t care that you’re tired, you need to get better with your long-distance running. That’s all soccer is, or did you forget?_

When Richie got his scholarship to Stanford University, he thought he must’ve been dreaming. He knew that a scholarship was the only way he could ever go anywhere that wasn’t a community college because his parents both didn’t have enough money to pay for him to go anywhere else and didn’t care enough about him to take out a loan. His parents taught him that he was not worth the effort it takes to care about someone.

Because of this, he pushes people away with uncomfortability, with confusion, with their disgust at his vulgarity, because he does not believe there is anything inside him to love. Hate and love are similar enough for him to take, and if somebody hates him, at least they feel anything for him at all.

This is why Richie loves Eddie: because Eddie seems to hate him so much, he’s consumed by it.

He doesn’t see Eddie’s hatred of him as a punishment or as an extension of his own self-hatred. Eddie hates Richie very differently than Richie hates himself, because it’s mixed so much with love that the lines are blurred and the emotions are muddled into something undefinable. Eddie tells everyone who will listen that he hates Richie, but at the end of the day, they have been something much more complicated that the words _love_ or _hate_ could ever describe since they met. If somebody looked at them, they might think that if they had sex, it would be filled with hate and anger and all-consuming flame. It isn’t. Their sex is sweet and restrained and kinder than Richie thought he was ever capable of. Richie has had sex before Eddie, but ever since their first time at the end of freshman year, he thinks Eddie has ruined him for anybody else. He and Eddie don’t bother looking elsewhere for sex because nobody else has the same spark that they do.

Richie would’ve been fine with hate-sex, because that would’ve meant he got Eddie at all. But this, the slow-moving softness and tender kisses to hip bones, it’s far different than he ever imagined it’d be, but so much fucking _better._ Richie has never thought he deserved this kind of thing, the kindness in Eddie’s eyes when they pull away from a kiss that takes Richie’s breath away. And that’s when Richie knows what Eddie isn’t capable of saying—he loves Richie. Richie knows he does. He can feel it on his skin when Eddie’s touches him, both a burn and the aloe that soothes it. He can taste it in the kindness of Eddie’s kisses. He can hear it in the quiet gasps he takes when Richie touches him just so, just right, just in a way that nobody else ever has or ever will. Because Richie touches him with all the love he never thought he’d be able to feel.

Richie has been feeling for a long time that the hollow, empty space inside him where his heart should be is being filled with Eddie’s laugh, the way Eddie rolls his eyes but never pulls away from him, his hair caught fire in the burning California sun, his excited smile when he knows he’s won his race. They all set a steady pulse within Richie that he knows is much more than the tender touches they give each other behind closed doors.

Eddie may hide him, but Richie never minds. He is just glad to have Eddie at all.

 

It all started after a soccer game in the spring of their freshman year.

Richie knew Eddie through their mutual friends and was being absolutely fucking insufferable with his very obvious crush on him. He knew pigtail pulling wasn’t the best way to get a guy, but despite how badly he wanted him, he wasn’t able to come up with a better plan. Plus, seeing Eddie’s flustered face was better than he could’ve ever imagined, and he wanted to keep seeing it, possibly for the rest of the year, probably forever. Richie is in the midst of changing after the third game of the season when the door slams open. Richie startles and looks up to find Eddie storming towards him.

“Everyone out!” he screams. “Except you.” He points at Richie with a harsh glare. Everyone quickly gets their things, all of them having showered already, and hustle out of the room. Bill shoots Richie a worried look, but says nothing as he leaves with the rest of the boys.

“May I help you?” Richie smirks, leaning against the lockers with his arms crossed, not even bothering to throw on his t-shirt. He knows this position is probably incredibly distracting for Eddie, especially because Eddie can’t stop glancing down at his chest before ripping his eyes back to Richie’s with a burning glare, but as he said: pigtail pulling.

“Yes, you can!” Eddie shouts. “You can stop fucking torturing me!”

“What am I doing to torture you, sweetheart?” Richie asks lightly.

“That! I’m not your fucking sweetheart! I’m _no one’s_ sweetheart!” Eddie barks, finger still wagging in Richie’s face. “I’m in those stands to support Bill and no one else. And stop pointing to me every time you block a goal—it’s not fucking cute.”

“I didn’t know you were paying attention, Eds. I’ll try to make it even cuter for you next time, then. Maybe add a little twirl afterwards,” Richie grins, spinning in place.

“Don’t _call_ me that! My name is _Eddie_ for christ’s sake! And I don’t want you to be cuter—I want you to cut it the fuck out!”

“And why is that?” Richie simpers.

“Because…” Eddie flounders, searching for a reason with his eyes still darting from Richie’s chest, his arms, his stomach, and back up to his eyes. “Because it’s embarrassing!”

“Oh, really? Hmm.” Richie pushes off the lockers, dropping his arms and stepping in closer to Eddie who takes a step back and immediately hits the backs of his knees against the bench. His eyes widen dramatically. “I think I can find a better way to embarrass you.”

“Was that supposed to be a pick-up line? Weak,” Eddie scoffs, hands on his own hips.

“Did it work?” Richie asks, eyebrows raised slightly, almost challengingly.

“What do you think?” Eddie snaps.

“I think...” Richie starts, stepping in closer to Eddie again and he sits in an attempt to get further away from him, but now he’s just looking up at Richie with wide, owlish eyes. Richie thinks it’s an incredible view. “You like that I torture you.”

“Why the fuck would I _like_ it?” Eddie grumbles.

“Dunno. Maybe you’re into that kinda shit. Who am I to judge?” Richie shrugs.

“Definitely not,” Eddie scoffs, rolling his eyes. His eyes widen even further at the admission and scrambles to continue. “Not that you deserve to know what I’m into. I wouldn’t date you if you were the last man on earth.”

“Maybe not…” Richie hums. He kneels slowly on the bench, legs on either side of Eddie’s lap, giving him full enough time to push him off. He doesn’t. Richie puts his hands on Eddie’s shoulders, gripping them tightly to keep balanced where he hovers over him. Eddie’s head tilts back to stare at Richie’s smouldering eyes, and Richie watches as his gaze darkens. _Jackpot._ “But you certainly would fuck me.”

“God, shut the fuck up,” Eddie breathes, grabbing Richie’s neck and connecting their mouths roughly. Richie groans into his mouth, shuddering when Eddie’s slides a hand up the middle of his chest to cup the other side of his neck. He slips a hand into Richie’s hair and tugs on it so that Eddie can kiss down his neck feverishly at a better angle. Richie gasps, wrapping his arms around Eddie’s shoulders. He whines when Eddie sucks on his pulse point, whimpering in a way he doesn’t ever remember doing prior, especially after only a little light petting.

“Can’t believe you’re even loud like this…” Eddie sighs, kissing down Richie’s chest.

“I’m… usually not…” he croaks. Eddie stops his trail of open-mouthed kisses and looks up at him, gaze hot but otherwise inscrutable.

“Oh, yeah?” Eddie smirks, tightening his hold on Richie’s hair and pulling lightly. Richie groans and grinds down onto the hard line of Eddie’s cock. Eddie’s eyelids flutter in response but otherwise doesn’t move. “What makes me so different than the parade of people you’ve had before me?”

“Better,” Richie chokes, shivering as Eddie trails his fingertips down Richie’s spine. “Better, way better.”

“Yeah? How long have you wanted this?” Eddie wonders. Richie isn’t sure when he lost all the power in this situation, but he finds himself not minding at all that he is completely under Eddie’s control. Eddie could have him any way he wanted and Richie wouldn’t once complain.

“Since the first time I saw you earlier this year,” Richie pants, gripping Eddie’s shoulders tightly where he’s got his arms wrapped around them. “October 28th, Halloween weekend. It was cold for the fall here and your nose was bright red. You were pissed off at everyone at the party we were at because the booze was cheap and you thought that California should be hot all the time. You were dressed as Joey Ramona Quimby. Like, from—”

 _“New Girl,”_ Eddie breathes wondrously, nodding slightly as his gaze softens. “I remember. You were Louise Belcher. I told you I liked your costume and you said that Ramona Quimby is an icon so I must be, too.”

“Wasn’t my best work,” Richie sighs, chuckling slightly.

“It wasn’t half-bad,” Eddie smiles, leaning up to connect their mouths sweetly. Richie breathes a sigh and it fans over Eddie’s cheeks. The softness of the kiss seems to rile Eddie up more than the rough kisses had been. He’s squirming and Richie sweeps a hand lightly over Eddie’s spine, kneading his fingers into his lower back in an attempt to soothe him, but this just makes Eddie gasp softly.

“C’mon, Rich,” he whimpers. “Please.”

Eddie begging shoots Richie’s resolve straight out the window and he grinds down again. This time, Eddie keens high in his throat and Richie just starts babbling.

“Lemme take care of you. Please, Eds, I wanna watch you come apart. Wanna see what you look like—I haven’t stopped thinking about it for a whole fucking year.” Eddie gasps and nods violently, looking up at Richie with wet, pleading eyes.

“Do it.”

He does. It’s far better than any fantasy he’s ever had, because Eddie in his head would only have sex with him with a storm in his eyes and venom in his words. In reality, Eddie’s words and sounds are soft and sweet, and his touches are more tender than anything Richie has ever felt in his life. He feels made new as they both unravel.

Afterwards, Eddie’s mouth is pressed into Richie’s collarbone and Richie is panting into Eddie’s hair, pressing light kisses where his lips are resting and whispering words of praise and terms of endearment. His legs are shaking and his bruised knees are aching where he's still hovering over Eddie both from the exertion of what they’ve just done and the game he played. Eddie whispers for him to sit down and Richie collapses onto Eddie’s thighs, sighing gratefully. They look at each other and burst out laughing. Richie isn't embarrassed at all, so glad to be able to hold Eddie in his arms even if Eddie made him promise he wouldn't tell anybody what they did. The light blush dusting Eddie’s cheeks when he laughs quietly makes Richie’s heart lurch painfully in his chest. In that locker room, safe from the judgement of the outside world, they both realize that they aren’t sure how to keep going on with their lives without this.

So they don’t. Eddie comes over to see Ben three days later and when Richie tells him that Ben is over at Beverly’s working on their calculus homework, he asks him if he wants to come in and wait for him. They can both feel the rouse palpable in the air, but Eddie nods and steps inside. The second the door is closed, Eddie presses him up against it, his body a hot line against Richie’s, and leans up on his toes to kiss him. When Eddie leaves this time, he smiles shyly and tells Richie to text him if he wants to.

He does want to. So he texts him, and he never stops.

 

Richie and Eddie are laying in the latter’s dorm room midway through their junior year doing homework when Richie suggests a game.

“No,” Eddie says distractedly, pulling out his headphones without looking up from where he’s sitting cross-legged on the floor. He allowed Richie to take the bed to study out of sheer politeness but seems to be regretting it severely, considering Richie isn’t even studying and Eddie’s back is obviously killing him. “I didn't even hear you but the answer is no. No sex, no Monopoly, no snack run, just like the seventeen other times you asked. You already have a movie on, is that not enough distraction for you?”

“Okay, first of all, _Imagine Me and You_ isn’t a movie, it’s a statement piece,” Richie decrees, sighing at the screen of his computer at the foot of Eddie’s bed. He angles it so that Eddie can see as well and they watch together for a few moments while Rachel screams on the screen _you’re a wanker, Number 9!_ Richie grins as Eddie yells with her, albeit much more quietly. “See?” Richie prompts. “Even the Spaghetti Monster can’t deny the allure of a lesbian rom-com.”

“I can and I will because this is due at midnight and I need to get it done,” Eddie says, reaching to grab his headphones again.

“Come on, Eds, take a break!” Richie pleads, pouting dramatically. Eddie sighs and drops his headphones back in his lap, looking up at Richie flatly. “It'll be fun. Please?”

“God, you're a fucking child, Tozier,” he sighs, marking his place in the textbook with his homework and closing it with a huge flourish, looking up at Richie from above his readers. “I'll give you fifteen minutes. What did you have in mind?”

Richie hums, thinking hard. “How about Truth or Dare?”

“With just the two of us?” Eddie asks almost nervously with a frown.

“We can play strip Truth or Dare or something, I dunno,” Richie shrugs.

“How the fuck would that even work?” Richie senses Eddie is uncomfortable with the whole idea and is seconds away from scrapping it when Eddie speaks up.

“Okay,” he relents quietly, chewing on his lower lip. He points at Richie. “But no strip anything. We play the game for a few rounds and then go back to work.”

“Sir, yes, sir!” Richie salutes with a grin, reaching over to pause the movie. Eddie hides his own smile in his sweater sleeve. “I'll go first, get us started. ‘Kay?”

“Okay. Truth or dare?”

“Dare,” Richie grins excitedly.

“I bet you're the type to always choose dare,” Eddie chuckles, rolling his eyes.

“I resent that!” Richie scoffs, but his grin hasn't faded whatsoever.

“Okay… I dare you to… God, this is stupid. What are we, 13?” Eddie sighs, clearly annoyed. Richie just shrugs with that same unrelenting, maddening grin on his face. Eddie grimaces at the sight. “I guess I dare you to try to… lick your elbow?”

“God, _boring,”_ Richie cries, but he tries anyway.

“Well, I was put on the spot!” Eddie says, the defense clear in his voice as he watches Richie’s tongue stick clear out of his mouth and attempt to lick his elbow. He’s pulling up on his arm with the other hand, but he doesn’t even get close. “Ha-ha,” Eddie teases.

“Well, my tongue isn’t supposed to reach that far!” Richie huffs, but then he smirks deeply. “It’s much more talented at other activities. Would you like to take a test drive?”

“I’ll pass, thanks. I’ve driven that car and I’m not a big fan of the model,” Eddie says, sticking his tongue out when Richie gasps. “C’mon, your turn. Let’s get this over with.”

“Truth or dare, Eds?”

“Um…” He looks torn, like both are the worst options he could be given. “Truth, I guess.” He lays back on the floor, grabbing Richie’s discarded sweatshirt and sticking it underneath his head. Richie lays back onto Eddie’s many pillows as well, thinking it would probably be easier for Eddie to answer whatever he asks truthfully if they aren’t looking at each other.

“Here, we’ll make it easy. You can pick anything, just say something—it just has to be true. Tell me something true.” Eddie pauses for a long time and when Richie peaks over the side of the bed at him, he’s smiling softly at the ceiling. Richie doesn’t know why—possibly because Richie took the pressure off and possibly because of what he’s thinking of telling him. He can never truly read Eddie perfectly.

“Sometimes being friends with Bill is hard because he has this perfect family who loves him. You know?” Richie nods even though Eddie can’t see him. “His mom adores him and is always sending him, like, home-baked goods and shit. Plus, his little brother Georgie just fucking idolizes him. He calls Bill like twice a week just to check in! See how he’s doing! What kind of 12-year-old does that?” His voice changes suddenly to be much higher-pitched than it is normally and he sounds like he’s holding back a laugh. “13-year-olds are the meanest people in the _world._ They terrify me to this _day.”_

“Fuck!” Richie laughs, but it’s much closer to a scream than anything else. “Fuck. Fuck. John Mulaney could get it. He wouldn’t want it, but he could get it.”

“He’s good people,” Eddie chuckles. “Not into him, but—”

“Hold on. You aren’t into John Mulaney? That’s fake, Eds. Every gay man I’ve ever met is into John Mulaney. And, honestly, most gay girls. Beverly has said she would, quote, ‘smash him’ on multiple occasions,” Richie says, almost as if he’s convincing Eddie to be interested in the man.

“I don’t know… I’m not much into straight guys. I don’t do that anymore.” This comment makes Richie want to ask a thousand questions, but he holds back for the sake of Eddie’s privacy. “He’s funny, which is obviously a turn-on.”

“Obviously,” Richie smirks.

“Not even deigning to comment on that. No, actually, if I don’t, it’s gonna bother me. You’re not funny,” Eddie deadpans.

“That’s even faker. So fake. I thought I told you to tell me something true, and now you’re spreading lies all over this sacred lair!”

“What the fuck makes this dorm room sacred?” Eddie asks, but he quickly continues, bowling over Richie’s comment about christening it. “Actually, no, I don’t wanna know. Plus, I did tell you something true. I’ve done my duty.”

Richie debates on if he should ask him to finish his original thought or not. He settles with trying to lead him in that direction without explicitly asking him to. He tries to give him an out. Sometimes he thinks Eddie only ever stumbles onto the truth by accident, like striking gold or being rejected. It’s like his own truths aren’t even up to him. Richie wants to help him allow the truth to be something more easily accessible. “Do you wish to continue on with your duty, good sir?”

Eddie pauses for another long moment and Richie resists peeking over his bent knees at him. He hears Eddie shift until he sees the back of his head pop up into his vision as he leans back against the side of the bed. “I guess it’s just really difficult to know someone so closely who isn’t fucked up and traumatized by their family like I am.”

“Yeah… I know what you mean…” Richie sighs. Eddie lets his head loll back against the bed and looks over at Richie.

“You do?” he asks, and his voice is quiet and vibrating with nerves.

“Absolutely. I don’t talk about my parents a lot, but… Yeah. Yeah, it wasn’t a sun-shiny childhood like Bill’s seems to be.” Eddie’s stare is intense and unreadable.

“Tell me something true,” he whispers.

“I, uh…” He wants to tell him. He wants to say the words out loud. They’re always on the tip of his tongue. But he knows Eddie would run. It seems to Richie that Eddie is always, always running, and Richie never wants him to run from him. So instead, he says something true that he hopes won’t make Eddie want to escape him. “You’re pretty.”

“Thanks,” Eddie says sarcastically, rolling his eyes.

“What!” Richie crows, flipping over onto his stomach and leaning his chin into his hands. “Do you disagree?”

“I… Whatever,” Eddie mumbles, unsure of how to respond.

“Yeah, _whatever,”_ Richie grins. “You’re pretty. Very pretty. Pretty, pretty Eds. End of story, case closed, badda-bing, badda-boom.”

Eddie laughs and rolls his head back to look at Richie once more. His eyes are softer and Richie can read him much more easily than before—he looks like he always does right before he kisses him. Richie smiles and leans down to connect their mouths. Eddie reaches an arm back to scratch Richie’s scalp lightly and Richie hums, deepening the kiss. Eddie complies for a few long, heated moments before pulling away gently, resting his cheek against Richie’s shoulder.

“Homework,” he whispers, running his fingers through Richie’s hair once more. He doesn’t pull away and his eyes are liquid where they gaze up at Richie. Richie kisses his forehead, the slope of his nose, the apple of his exposed cheek, the corner of his mouth. Eddie sighs gently and his eyelids flutter closed.

“Homework can wait,” Richie whispers back before connecting their mouths together once again.

 

“I think I wanna try out for the Ultimate Frisbee team…” Richie hums as they lay in Eddie’s tiny bed, curled into each other mostly naked despite the intense heat of the Silicon Valley in April. They would probably be sweating less if they separated, or if Richie simply left after they finished having sex, but neither of them are willing to stop touching the other. The window is gaping wide open and they hear students milling about below them. Bill Denbrough, their close friend and Eddie’s roommate, is at class for the next few hours. Eddie has his schedule memorized. When asked about it, he says he’s just a good friend.

A good, _selfish_ friend would probably be more accurate.

“Oh, yeah?” Eddie asks, propping his chin up on Richie’s chest to look at him. “Soccer just ain’t cuttin’ it for ya anymore?”

“It’s not that,” Richie laughs. Eddie feels the vibrations of it rumble through his head and he bites back a smile. He feels like he does that often around Richie. _Far too often,_ his brain supplies. He feels his brain is unhelpful as shit more often than not and ignores it. “I wanted to join freshman year, but… I’m here on scholarship, you know? I figured I should devote myself to just soccer and studying.” He grins down at Eddie from where he has his arm propped up behind his head. “Well, that and givin’ you my sweet, sweet lovin’.”

“Fuck off,” Eddie scoffs, rolling his eyes, but he doesn’t move away from where Richie is lightly tracing designs onto his bare back.

“You think I should do it?” Richie asks. Eddie wants to tell him he’s never seen him play ultimate, so he doesn’t know, but in all honesty, he thinks Richie could rule the world with both hands tied behind his back and blindfolded. Not that he’d ever say that out loud, of course. Still, Richie looks so damn _hopeful_ and Eddie isn’t a fucking monster.

“Sure, Rich,” Eddie says with a smile that he doesn’t even try to suppress. Of course he wants Richie to follow his dreams. If asked, it’d be so that the two of them can have more to compete about. But truly, he just wants Richie to be happy.

“Yeah? You don’t think it’d be too difficult with everything else I’ve got goin’?” Richie wonders.

“When have you ever shied away from a busy life?” Richie smiles wide and toothy and so bright that Eddie thinks he could easily outshine the California sun beating down onto their skin. His breath catches in his throat at the sight and he hopes Richie doesn’t hear it. If he does, he pretends he didn’t, probably for Eddie’s sake.

“Never,” Richie says decisively. He nods once. “So it’s settled. I’ll try out for the team next year.”

“Sure,” Eddie shrugs. “You’d probably be better than all those idiots anyway… Except Beverly. She’s the master.”

“Yeah, truly,” Richie chuckles. “She’s kind of my inspiration.”

“When is she not?” Eddie smirks with a raised eyebrow.

“When she’s housing an entire family sized bag of kettle chips in the name of ‘justice and peace’ even though she’s got a game the next day…” Richie shakes his head with a fond sigh. “Then I’m mostly just impressed.”

“Yeah, that was a wild party… When do you think Mike and Stan’re gonna have another one?”

“Oh, there’s one coming up after the home game this weekend!” Richie smiles, but it drops quickly in confusion. “I thought I invited you.”

“Did you text me? Usually, I ignore your texts because the important stuff is so buried beneath utter bullshit and I don’t even bother to read any of them. I figure you’ll relay the important stuff in person or just call me—”

“Eddie baby, you realize you’re the only person who still uses your phone as a phone in the year of our lord 2018?” Richie teases.

“You weren’t complaining over spring break when we had phone sex like four times.” Richie’s eyes glaze over.

“Yeah, we gotta do that again…” he breathes. “Okay, maybe you’re onto something. But Facetime is probably more productive in that area anyway.” He smirks, eyes sharp once again when they zero in on Eddie. “Free porn.”

“I’m not going to have Facetime sex with you,” Eddie says, rolling his eyes. “Too close to photos.”

“I still think it’s fucking wild that you won’t send me naked pics. Snapchat was made for a _reason._ Not that I don’t fucking love your dog filter selfies.”

“I know. You screenshot _all of them_ which is why I don’t trust you with my nude photos.”

“So you’re saying they _exist_ and you’re not _sharing them with me?!_ How rude!” Richie uses his best Stephanie Tanner Voice and Eddie snorts. “I share mine with you!”

“Yeah, who says I want them?” Eddie snarks.

“Wait, you don’t?” Richie asks, voice suddenly small with worry. He removes his hand from Eddie’s back, now hovering over it, and they both frown. He and Eddie are religious about consent and Eddie knows he’d never send another dirty photo again if Eddie told him not to. He has to be careful about how he responds, he realizes, because if Eddie indicates that they’re unsolicited, Richie might never send another one, and that is absolutely unacceptable because Eddie saves every naked photo he's ever sent over text message and gets off to them whenever Richie can't come over. Honestly, he saves all of Richie’s texted photos—in a locked folder with a passcode, of course. He can't have anybody knowing how deeply he cares about Richie, not even him. That would mean losing this race he's running of the lie he's kept up that he has no interest in Richie, and if there's something Eddie Kaspbrak never does, it's lose.

“Not when I’m in class, idiot!” Eddie sighs around a tiny but unmistakable smile.

“I can’t help it if Little Richie misses you when you’re in your three-hour lectures on, like, Neptune or whatever…” He still sounds a little bit concerned. He looks it, too, not making eye contact with Eddie anymore.

“What, no Uranus joke? It was _right_ there…” Eddie says, smile growing. Richie smiles quickly, but when he shrugs, it falls again. Eddie sighs. “Keep sending them. I’ll just stop opening your snaps in class.”

“Are you sure?” Richie asks, looking at Eddie once again. Eddie brushes a lock of hair out of Richie’s eyes and nods as he tucks it behind his ear.

“S’all good. Promise promise.” He holds out his pinky, only brought out when both of them are being entirely truthful so that Richie knows the charade is dropped for a moment—an emotional safeword of sorts—and Richie’s smile returns full-force as he hooks their pinkies together. They both bite down on their own thumbs lightly to seal it, something Richie always insists upon.

“Promise promise,” Richie repeats and then moves on so quickly that Eddie almost can't keep up. “Okay, so this party,” Richie starts, wrapping an arm back around Eddie’s waist. He uses the other one to gesture wildly. “It’s gonna be at Mike and Stan’s apartment off campus—they host the best parties because their living room is so fucking big. I still don’t know how they scored that place.”

“Maybe because Mike and Stanley both have jobs,” Eddie says, rolling his eyes.

“Is this a pointed statement I hear, Eddie Spaghetti?” Richie smiles, poking Eddie in the side. Eddie giggles and squirms down Richie’s body, trying to escape his fingers and still be touching him. “How can I get a job when I’ve got soccer, school and fucking you nice and good to deal with?”

“Go fuck yourself!” Eddie laughs as Richie continues tickling him.

“Actually, I think that’s _your_ job. Hey! Maybe you can pay me!”

“For sex? You wanna be a prostitute to make your way through college? What is this, _Pretty Woman?”_ Eddie taunts. He shrieks when Richie grabs him by the waist and hauls him back up to eye level.

“You saying I’m pretty?” Richie smirks. Eddie sighs harshly.

“I never said that.”

“Mm, I think you did,” Richie says, voice low and teasing in the way that Eddie absolutely loves. “I think you think I’m pretty.”

“I wouldn’t fuck you if I didn’t think you were pretty, Rich.” Eddie rolls his eyes and Richie’s smirk turns into a luminous smile.

“Really?” he asks hopefully.

“Obviously,” Eddie grumbles. Richie’s smile never fades. Eddie isn’t sure it ever does. He hopes it doesn’t, even when he and Richie are away from each other.

“And you’ll come with me to the party on Friday?”

“Obviously.” Richie lets out a little giggle, so excited and happy that Eddie feels his whole heart expand when he hears it. It’s one of the biggest struggles of his life thus far to keep a smile off his face when he watches Richie’s eyes twinkle in the bright light of the sun.

“C’mere,” Richie sighs, dragging one of his hands up Eddie’s back and into his hair to connect their lips. It’s soft and sweet, as it always is. Eddie melts into his chest and exhales shakily into Richie’s mouth when he slowly drags his tongue over Eddie’s bottom lip. Eddie is certain that Richie is going to kill him one day. Maybe they’ll kill each other in some weird double-homicide. Death by kissing a pretty boy who Eddie loves more than he ever thought he could ever love anyone—what a way to go.

 

When Richie texts Eddie that he can’t hang out on Wednesday night due to the fact that he has to run drills because his coach is on his ass about not being a good enough runner, he definitely doesn’t expect Eddie to show up on the soccer field in his track uniform and a satchel filled with water bottles.

“Hey, Number 9,” Eddie calls out, dropping the bag on the ground. “Lookin’ good.” Richie whips around from where he’s halfway down the field and smiles dopily at Eddie.

“Lookin’ good yourself,” he says, voice filled with wonder.

“Get your ass over here.” Richie runs over, smiling despite the fact that he’s panting hard. He stops short in front of Eddie and adjusts his headband.

“Hey,” he says. “You out here for a little hanky-panky in the grass? I know you’ve always wanted to do it on the field.”

“When have I _ever_ said I want to have sex with you on the soccer field? Projecting much? And anyway, no, I’m here to help your sorry ass learn to run.”

“You… What?” Richie breathes, eyes shining in the light of the moon.

“You deaf now, too?” Eddie leans into Richie’s space, so closely that he can probably smell the cigarette he smoked earlier that day, his cinnamon gum and the smell of his sweat. “I’m going to help you run.”

“How do you do that so well?” Richie marvels, shaking his head, and he can feel Eddie smile against the shell of his ear. “Okay. How’re ya gonna do that?”

Eddie slips his hand in Richie’s and tugs on it. “C’mon. We’re gonna go to the track field.” Eddie picks up his messenger bag and holds it out to Richie. “Carry this for me?” Richie nods, slinging it over his shoulder and grunting a bit from the weight of it.

“What the fuck is in this, bricks?” Richie groans. Eddie shrugs and takes Richie’s hand again, this time lacing their fingers together. Richie feels warm from the sparks that shoot up his arm at the contact. They walk to the track field in relative silence. Every now and then, Richie will make a comment about the weight of the bag, or swing their arms between them, but never talks about the fact that Eddie is holding his hand for the first time outside of one of their dorm rooms. Once they get to the field, Eddie asks Richie if he stretched before doing his exercises.

“I don’t need to stretch,” Richie sniffs.

“Everyone needs to stretch, dumbass. You’re gonna get hurt if you don’t.”

“Aw, my Eddie Spaghetti cares about me getting hurt?” Eddie stares at him while Richie’s eyebrows jump suggestively. “I can think of some _very_ productive ways for you to stretch me out.”

“I’m not here for sex. Get your head out of the fucking gutter for _once,_ Tozier,” Eddie sighs, and he sounds too close to serious for Richie to keep joking.

“Okay.” Richie schools his expression to be something resembling sincere, but he must try too hard because Eddie bursts out laughing.

“What’s that!”

“What’s what?” Richie asks, trying to keep his expression the same, but a tiny smile bleeds through.

“That face! You look constipated!”

“Fuck you,” Richie laughs, the smile finally breaking over his features. “I was trying to be for real!”

“Okay,” Eddie smiles. He looks so soft and kind and _in love_ that Richie feels his heart pound violently and unrestrained in his chest, like it’s trying to break out of its prison and jump into Eddie’s hands. Richie tells it to fuck right off because it isn’t sure Eddie would even catch it if it did. “Come on, let’s do some stretches.”

“You gonna model ‘em, teach?” Richie simpers with a smirk. Eddie rolls his eyes and begins stretching without him. Richie quickly folds his body in half, neck craned to watch Eddie move. He’s attempting to pay attention to the stretches Eddie is demonstrating, but he’s also 100% certain that the regulation red shorts of the Stanford University track team are out to personally attack him and kill him where he stands. After he and Eddie are on the ground and finished doing their toe touches, Eddie deems Richie fully prepared to run with him. He tells Richie that they’re going to do one lap and Eddie is going to run beside him.

He doesn’t. He runs ahead of Richie, and it’s so motherfucking distracting that Richie almost trips over his sneakers. “Fuck!” he curses after the second time he nearly pitches forward onto the turf. Eddie whips around quickly. Even running backwards, he’s _still_ faster than Richie. He knows that Eddie is on the fucking track team or whatever and he’s trained to be better than Richie in this one, very specific activity, but it still stings a bit in the place inside him he reserves for competitions.

“You okay?” Eddie asks, voice full of genuine concern. Richie looks up to find him smiling in a way that’s so soft and small that Richie _does_ pitch forward this time and falls to his knees.

“Goddammit!” he cries, sitting down and examining his skinned knees in the low light of the moon.

“Aw, Rich…” Eddie coos, jogging over to him. He kneels down in front of Richie and hums. “I had a feeling this might happen—you’re always flying all over the field and aren’t used to staying upright for too long. I’ve got bandaids and alcohol wipes in my bag, I’ll be right back, okay?”

Richie nods, eyes wide as he stares up at Eddie. He’s afraid if he speaks, he’ll betray himself with how affected he is by Eddie being so kind to him in a setting outside of sex. He knows Eddie would be able to tell, can read Richie like a book, so he says nothing. He picks a pebble out of his wound and hisses loudly while Eddie is gone. He knows Eddie isn’t big on blood in general, so the fact that he is getting anywhere near Richie’s willingly makes him want to at least make it a little easier on him. Of course, him pulling the small rock out of the cut on his knee just makes it bleed more and he curses, wishing he’d brought something to be able to wipe it up. When Eddie returns, there is much more blood than before dribbling down Richie’s right knee and Richie grimaces when he glances up at him.

“Sorry, Eds… I was tryna help, but I don’t think it worked very well…” Eddie tuts softly and kneels down to wipe up the blood with one of the wipes.

“You should’ve waited for me…”

“Know you don’t like shit like this. I was trying to make it easier on you,” Richie shrugs. Eddie smiles at the wound he’s cleaning with a little bottle of alcohol. Richie winces slightly at the sting but makes no other movements to show that he’s in pain. Eddie covers the wound with two medicated bandaids. He looks at Richie’s other knee and seems to like what he sees.

“This one’s better than the other one,” he smiles gleefully. “Just one bandaid, okay?”

“‘Kay.” Richie feels warm under Eddie’s tender touches and soft-eyed attention. It isn’t the way he usually feels when Eddie and him are together and he is this gentle—that is saved exclusively for their bedrooms. He doesn’t know why Eddie is treating him this way outside, in plain sight of anybody, but it doesn’t make him nervous like he thought it might. Richie isn’t worried that he doesn’t deserve it—he likes it too much to think about his insecurities for the moment. He knows he’ll get back to his room later and pick apart every interaction he and Eddie had tonight like he always does. He will try to save being nervous for _then._ That Eddie was pitying him, or maybe he’s getting ready to dump him (not that they’re even officially together) and just trying to soften the blow. Sure, Richie hasn’t had sex with anybody else in over a year—fuck, he’s barely even _looked_ at anybody else. And despite the fact that Eddie’s told him outright that he hasn’t either, Richie still wonders. Maybe this was only ever a game. Maybe he really _does_ hate him. Maybe—

“Hey,” Eddie says softly. Richie looks up from where he’s picking at the loose strings at the hem of his shorts and he knows he looks like a deer caught in headlights, but he doesn’t have the strength to be able to school his expression into something that looks more like the one he usually wears for everybody else. Because the thing is, Eddie _isn’t_ everybody else. He never has been. So he allows Eddie to see him nervous, honestly fucking terrified, with a kind of blind trust he’s never given to anyone but him. Eddie’s smile turns wistful and a little sad at the look on Richie’s face and he takes off Richie’s headband to be able to tuck all the strands of hair that have fallen out into a more composed place. He smooths his hand over Richie’s head when he’s finished and watches as Richie’s expression softens into something fonder and happier. Richie has never felt safer than he does in that moment. “That’s better.”

Richie smiles and he thinks that maybe his insecure, maladaptive thought processes can fuck right off, because Eddie is looking at him like he _does_ love him, and even if he never says it, even if he never once confirms what Richie has been wondering for months, years, Richie will still know. He hopes that continues to be enough.

“Hey, Eds,” he says, and it comes out in a wrecked whisper. He doesn’t clear his throat. He thinks Eddie deserves to see him at his most vulnerable after the way he’s treated him tonight. “You’d be good with kids.”

“You think?” Eddie grins. “I… I never really thought about it. I was always just… running.” Richie isn’t certain is he means running on the track or running _from_ something, _to_ something. He doesn’t think it very much matters right now.

“Maybe you can teach somebody else how.” Eddie nods without dropping his smile.

“Yeah. Maybe.” He stands up and then holds out his hand to Richie. “Ready to try again, superstar?”

Richie smiles up at him and nods. “Yeah. You gotta give me the special treatment in and _out_ of the bedroom.” Eddie rolls his eyes and huffs out a laugh.

“Sure, big guy. Come on.” Eddie continues to be kind to Richie, even when he’s instructing him on better running techniques, and Richie is certain of it now: he doesn’t deserve Eddie. He’s far too good, far too smart and cool and interesting and talented and _nice_ to be Richie’s friend, let alone be what he is. But he’s the best thing Richie’s got in his life outside of the soccer field and he is determined not to fuck it up.

After about 30 minutes of running, the sprinklers come on suddenly and begin drenching them. Eddie shrieks and runs off the turf quickly, but Richie just runs right onto the grass in the middle of the track. He’s laughing so hard, he feels breathless with it. He knows he’s tired, too tired to keep running around, but he pushes himself anyway, just like he does in the fourth quarter of a game.

“What the hell are you doing?” Eddie shouts from the other side of the track. “You’re gonna catch a cold and then you won’t be able to play on Friday!”

“Aw, c’mon, Eds! We’re only young once! Join me!” he giggles. Eddie crosses his arms and shakes his head. Richie stops prancing and holds out his hands to Eddie. “Please, sunshine?”

Eddie huffs out a sigh, and Richie’s sure he means it to look put-out, but the smile on his face is impeding that image greatly. Eddie shakes his head and runs full-tilt at Richie. He wants to catch him, he means to, but when Eddie tackles him, he goes down hard into the grass, laughing hysterically.

“You little gremlin!” Richie shouts, wrapping his arms around Eddie’s back and rolling them so that Eddie is now the one pinned to the wet grass. He and Eddie wrestle for a while until Eddie manages to pin him to the ground, knees digging into his sides and hands pressing his shoulders into the dirt.

“Who’s the gremlin now?” Eddie teases, giving him a dark, mischievous smile.

“Still you!” Richie laughs.

“Ugh!” Eddie shrieks. “Say it! Say you’re a gremlin or I’ll never get off!”

“Who says I want you to?” Richie challenges with a raised eyebrow. Eddie’s smile grows, but the sharp look in his eyes doesn’t fade as he swoops down to kiss Richie breathless.

And then the overhead lights come on.

“Hey! What are you kids doing?! You can’t be out here!” someone yells from up the hill, presumably where the control box is that turns on the lights. Richie and Eddie scramble up as the person calls out, “Get outta here! Go!” Eddie grabs Richie’s hand and pulls him towards the other side of the track, past the bleachers and up the other side of the hill. They collapse onto the grass of the quad in a heap of limbs and laughter. Richie knows the street lights are shining down on them. Anyone could look out their windows and see them. But even with all of that, Eddie still looks over at him, bright-eyed and happier than Richie has ever seen him, and kisses him. Richie kisses him back, and he doesn’t think it much matters if Richie thinks he deserves Eddie or not, because Eddie chose him out of the 17,000 people on this campus. He could have anyone he wants and he chose Richie, even if he can’t say that out loud. Richie doesn’t think he needs to—his actions are proof of his affection much more than his words are, and Richie is too smart to give that up by questioning it.

Some questions, he thinks, are better left without answers.

 

Eddie and Richie walk into Mike and Stanley’s apartment after the game on Friday night where they are literally _blasting_ the song _Bedroom Floor_ by Liam Payne. Eddie groans the moment he recognizes the song.

“I can’t believe I’m in a Liam House,” he grumbles. Richie laughs brightly.

“He’s not that bad! I like his tats!” Eddie shakes his head.

“No way. If you like tattoos, go with Zayn—not that he’s better than Harry. Plus, you'd like Harry’s tats better anyway—he's literally got a butterfly tattooed onto his stomach. The best and most permanent pun,” Eddie sighs, looking a bit far away. Richie smiles at his obvious affection for a celebrity who he has said on multiple occasions reminds him of Richie.

“I’m more of a Louis boy, I think…” Richie lies. They both know Harry Styles is his fashion inspiration. Still, he turns to Eddie with sharp eyes. “I’ve always been into the tiny, cute twinks.”

“Die,” Eddie deadpans. He starts wandering around, looking for Mike or Stanley. He finds Mike trying to keep Beverly from drinking two shots at once.

“One at a time, Beverl—oh, hi, guys!” Mike waves them over and Eddie immediately starts ranting.

“Mike, _please_ let me DJ. Liam Payne is the worst One Direction member, you can’t do this to me,” he moans. Mike gives him an incredulous look.

“Eddie, you’ve been here for, what, 45 seconds? And you’re already making demands?” Richie laughs so loudly that Eddie has to elbow him in the gut.

“Hey! Watch the merchandise!”

“I know you guys like Liam, and he’s fine. Truly. But _all_ of his songs are about sex. It just isn’t classy,” Eddie reasons.

“What do you suggest, Eds, a little _This Town_ action? Get everyone nice and sleepy at the ripe hour of—” Richie grabs Eddie’s wrist and checks his watch. “—8:26 P.M.?”

“Fuck off, Tozier, this conversation doesn’t involve you!” Eddie snaps, snatching his arm back before schooling his face into something much sweeter as he looks to Mike. “Please? You can curate the playlist if you want.”

“I trust you, Eddie,” Mike laughs, shaking his head. “But Stanley might have a cow. He goes rough and tumble to _Strip That Down.”_

“That’s the only Liam song on here!” Eddie gushes excitedly, bouncing on his heels. Richie interrupts them by loudly chirping the iPhone ringtone in the pre-chorus of the song, and Eddie sighs harshly, shooting him a look.

“What? I’m not as morally against any of the 1D boys as you are, Eds. Liam is, how you say, daddy?”

“I will _murder you_ where you stand,” Eddie threatens with a dark look in his eyes. “Never let the word ‘daddy’ come out of your mouth in any context _ever_ again.”

“You liked it,” Richie scoffs, rolling his eyes.

“I’m not big on throwing up in my mouth, actually, but keep dreaming,” Eddie says, walking over to where the speakers are situated on the desk. Without looking over his shoulder to make sure Richie has followed him, he says, “Go pour me a drink.” He searches through his Spotify library until he gets to _fun with ******._ His and Richie’s sex mix is going to have to do, as it’s one of the only ones he has downloaded to his phone. He doesn’t think the mix he made for Richie’s Dungeons and Dragons campaign is going to be very uplifting. He does know though that whatever he plays will still be far better than whatever trash Stanley has playing. _Get Low_ was going to play next. Eddie shudders in disgust as he unplugs the phone. Everyone yells angrily as he does, but Eddie just rolls his eyes, quickly plugs in his own and presses the shuffle button.

 _Slow Hands_ by Niall Horan comes on and everyone cheers as Richie comes up behind him. He’s certain Richie is holding back a comment about how this is not a big leap of a difference, but that would spark another conversation about the differences between the boys’ solo careers and he knows Richie is smarter than to go down that rabbit hole twice in one night. He puts a drink in his hand and Eddie takes a tentative sip. He finds a whiskey sour—his favorite. He smiles, hiding it in the cup and turns slightly so that Richie can hear him very softly say, “Thank you.” Richie’s fingers graze over his lower back as he passes by and there’s a smile in his voice when he responds.

“You’re welcome, sweetheart.” Eddie shivers visibly and he curses himself silently for being so obviously affected by Richie. He frowns and shakes his head, but when he looks to see if Richie saw him, he’s already talking with Beverly about ultimate frisbee and what she thinks about him joining the team. Eddie’s smile returns when he hears Richie excitedly yell,  _“Really?!”_ and he has to walk away before he gets too obviously invested in Richie’s happiness.

Eddie and a boy from his Econ class are chatting about their upcoming final and making plans to study tomorrow. Eddie’s on his fourth whiskey sour when _Kiwi_ by Harry Styles comes on. Eddie’s eyes light up and he excuses himself, hailing that this song cannot be listened to without dancing. He waves Eddie away with a smile and Eddie jumps into the middle of the living room with one hand in the air pointed to the ceiling as he screams, _“She’s driving me crazy! But I’m into it.”_ Some laughter occurs scattered around the room at his out-of-character outburst, but Eddie isn’t paying attention. He knows logically that he isn’t pulling out his sexiest dance moves for what this song deserves, but he’s enjoying himself, which Richie always insists is the sexiest quality a person can have. He trusts Richie’s opinion on the matter, mostly because he trusts Richie in almost all matters. Not that he’d ever tell him that.

Beverly must’ve torn herself away from her conversation with Richie, because she’s now in front of Eddie, screaming the chorus with him. They’re singing into each other’s faces as the volume raises suddenly. Eddie looks over to find Richie at the speakers, watching them both with fond eyes. Ben and Bill join the fray and Eddie smiles loosely where he’s looking back at Richie. He jerks his head towards the four of them and Richie rushes over bopping his head dramatically. Eddie laughs unrestrained and unbidden and takes Richie’s hands when he gets to them. Richie’s eyes light up when he does and he twirls Eddie several times with his long arms. Eddie giggles and fists a hand into Richie’s Ramones t-shirt as they loudly scream along with the bridge. Mike and Stanley have also joined them by now. Stanley was dragged unwillingly by Mike but he’s smiling in a way that he only does around his friends.

Eddie can’t tear his eyes away from where the long line of Richie’s neck is thrown back with laughter. Eddie wants to be able to kiss him. He wants to not have to blame his affection on drunkenness. He wants to be who he is, all of the ugly and lovely parts of himself wholly exposed. Eddie frowns suddenly and when Richie looks down at him, he frowns, too, and pokes at the corner of his mouth lightly.

“Where’s that pretty smile, Eds?” he prompts and Eddie’s grin slowly blooms over his face. Richie is so affectionate. He can’t imagine what it would be like to be able to have him like this all the time. “There it is…”

Eddie’s smile turns bashful and to continue distracting him from his momentary sadness, Richie mimes a wild rendition of an air guitar along with the song. Eddie looks at him with a raised eyebrow, as if he isn’t wholly used to Richie’s dramatics.

“You done?” Eddie asks.

“Not ‘til I get to hear you laugh,” Richie responds, voice strained from the effort of playing the air guitar.

“Ha-ha,” Eddie says dryly.

“Not good enough!” Richie sings. Eddie knows the song is coming to a close (he and Richie have attempted to make one another come in the three minutes it takes to listen to this song several times before and have not yet succeeded) and when he realizes his hand is still loosely grabbing Richie’s threadbare t-shirt, he tightens his grip and pulls him out of the room.

“Ooh, are we gonna get it—” Eddie slams Stanley and Mike’s bedroom door shut and when he turns to him with a grave expression, Richie finishes much more weakly than he started. “—on…”

“I…” Eddie doesn’t know what he wants to say. His mind is swimming and he just wants to be able to have this conversation but he doesn’t know how. He doesn’t know if he even can. “I’m scared,” is what he ends up saying. It’s lame, but it’s true. He figures the truth is always the best and rarest place to start any conversation.

“Oh,” Richie says, taking two steps closer and grabbing his elbows. “Of what, Eds?”

“Lotsa stuff…” Eddie mumbles, shrugging. “Liking you where people can see, mostly.”

Richie frowns and his grip tightens. “Yeah?”

“Yeah… That sounds so bad and I don’t even know _why._ It’s making me miserable,” Eddie sighs, flopping to the floor right where he stands. Richie sits down in front of him and holds out his hands—an open invitation. Eddie grabs them almost as soon as he puts them out.

“Well, do you wanna try to talk it out?” Richie asks, not at all leading and allowing Eddie to shoot him down if it makes him uncomfortable. It makes Eddie wish he could.

“I think talking it out would be even scarier…” Eddie whispers as he slumps against the door. The music still playing in the living room, now _I Wanna Be Yours_ by The Arctic Monkeys, is sending vibrations throughout his body. _Maybe this mix was a bit too random of a choice,_ he thinks, distractedly chewing on the skin around his thumb.

“What if I ask you questions? You can answer them however you like, or say ‘pass’ if it’s too much,” Richie tries. “You can ask me questions if you want, too.”

“Um… Okay,” Eddie nods. While Richie thinks of what he wants to ask first, Eddie hums along to the song, lightly swaying.

 _Secrets I have held in my heart_  
_Are harder to hide than I thought_  
_Maybe I just wanna be yours  
__I wanna be yours, I wanna be yours_

“What do you consider us to be?” Richie prompts after a while. Eddie stares at where their hands are clasped together.

“...I’m not quite sure anymore,” he whispers. Richie smiles wistfully at him.

“Yeah… I know what you mean…” And he isn't quite sure Richie _does_ know what he means, but he's not going to argue it. Arguing this would mean needing to explain himself and he can barely handle what they're doing as it is. “Okay. What about hiding our... r-relationship, or whatever, appeals to you?” Richie asks, nervously stammering around the second half of his question, clearly not able to define what they are either. Or maybe he was just waiting for Eddie to give it a name. Eddie wishes he could give what Richie deserves to have.

“I mean, it’s a lot easier to hate someone than it is to love—” He cuts himself off, eyes widening. Richie’s do as well. “...like them. It’s more palatable to people, I think. I mean, we look a certain way to the world, you know? We’ve acted one way for so long, it’s like… I’m just…” Eddie sighs, hanging his head. “I’m so afraid of what everybody thinks.”

“Why do you think that is?” Richie asks a bit weakly, probably from the almost-delcaration Eddie just accidentally spit out. Eddie shrugs.

“Bullies... My mom… They all taught me that it’s better to be quiet about who I am than to be proud of it.” _Hide it, Eddie. No matter what you do, you have to hide it,_ he remembers his mother telling him when she found out about his sexuality.

“You… You don’t talk about your mom a lot.” Richie says carefully.

“That’s because there’s too much to say,” Eddie laughs hollowly, and Richie crumbles in a way that looks like his heart is physically breaking and he’s merely trying to protect it from further damage by curling into himself. He composes himself and shakes his head sharply, as if he’s trying to stave off both his emotions and his drunkenness.

“Do you want to?” Eddie thinks for a while, determining if Richie can be trusted with this information. And then he realizes he's trusted Richie with much more before this—it wouldn't be as big of a deal to tell him as he's making it out to be in his head.

“My mom, she… she doesn’t know I’m out.”

“Hmm. That’s a strange choice of words,” Richie comments confusedly. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean when she went searching through my laptop in my senior year of high school, she only found gay porn because I had forgotten to clear my browser history the night before. She told me to never tell anyone who I really am. It’s, um. It’s not palatable, is what she said. Guess that's where I got the idea in my head from.” Eddie shrugs, trying to communicate that he’s trying to be casual about the whole thing, but it still deeply affects him to this day.

“Holy shit,” Richie breathes in shock. “She went through your _laptop?”_

“Yeah. That’s tame compared to some of the other shit she pulled.”

“Fuck her!”

“Yeah. There’s a lot more to the story, but yeah.” There’s a stretch of silence after that which makes Eddie uncomfortable. He can only imagine how Richie must feel—he once called awkward silences the bane of his existence. They’ve never had one before this moment.

“Was it the breathplay shit?” Richie blurts out, trying desperately to lighten the mood, grasping for straws and picking the wrong one. “Because—”

“Richie,” Eddie warns, looking up at him with his eyes flashing.

“Yeah, I know…” The _I’m sorry_ goes unsaid, but Eddie hears it in his tone regardless. “I just don’t really know…”

“What to say?” Eddie finishes. Richie nods. “There’s not much to say, really.” There’s another silence then, but it’s much less heavy than the one before it. “Can I ask you a question now?”

“Shoot.”

“Do you…” He curses and then shakes his head. Richie squeezes his hand gently, and that action alone gives him the strength to ask his question. “Are you cool with the fact that our sex isn’t, like… kinky or passionate or whatever?”

Richie’s eyebrows quirk several times as a small smile blooms on his face. “Yeah, Eddie. I’m very cool with it.”

“Because I can, like, make it cooler or whatever… More interesting… I want you to enjoy it, too. I don’t want you to get bored with me.” Eddie squeezes his eyes shut angrily when he realizes the last sentence slipped out. _Too truthful. Too much. Too vulnerable. Abort mission! Abort! Abort!_ Eddie thinks, sirens blaring in his head, all telling him to escape the situation, to cut the cord, to _run,_ but Richie’s soft voice cuts through the sudden pandemonium in his head.

“Eddie, I’ve never once been bored with you. I can’t imagine I ever will be.” Eddie wrenches his eyes open and Richie looks so serious that Eddie is on the brink of believing him. “What we do is very hot to me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah!” Richie laughs brightly. “You’re my favorite fuck.”

“Is that all I am? Just a fuck?” Eddie doesn’t mean for it to come out sour and bitter, but he’s never been able to hide his emotions very well when there’s alcohol coursing through his blood. Richie struggles for a bit, mouth opening and closing several times, and when he looks at Eddie, his eyes are pleading, as if he’s trying to get Eddie to tell him what answer would make him the most comfortable. But Eddie isn’t even sure of that himself.

“I think you know the answer to that.”

“I don’t! That’s why I asked,” he responds cheekily. Richie snorts and smiles.

“I think if you don’t know that I’m fucking crazy for you after all this time, you must’ve bribed the admissions office.” Eddie laughs, smiling warmly with a blush on his cheeks that he isn’t sure he could convince Richie is just from the whiskey. Without making eye contact, he crawls into Richie’s lap and rests against his chest. Richie’s hands flounder for a moment, unsure of how Eddie wants him to proceed, but then Eddie grabs Richie’s hands and pulls them around himself, letting them rest on his lower back. Richie physically relaxes where Eddie is pressed against him and laughs softly, leaning back against the bed and shaking his head where it’s above Eddie’s.

“So sweet…” he coos gently. Eddie’s smile grows where he’s pressed against Richie’s chest, and he allows it to even though he knows Richie can feel it. Eddie fists a hand into Richie’s shirt and sighs, letting his body relax in the way Richie’s had. Not much has been figured out, but they are still together. They’re still them. Eddie is pretty sure that’s the best thing for them to be.

Eddie’s eyes droop, and Richie asks him if he wants him to bring him back to his dorm room. Eddie shakes his head.

“Yours,” he slurs. “Don’t want Bill to find us.”

Richie smiles wistfully and nods. “Okay.”

He drags Eddie up and tells him that they’re gonna have to separate when they leave if Eddie wants no one to assume that they’re together. Eddie sighs, frowning, but nods regardless. They make it out of the house with minimal damage—just significant looks from both Bill and Beverly that Eddie lets Richie deal with, and the angry groans of party goers when Eddie removes his phone from the speakers. He shouts, _“What?!”_ at the crowd before leaving. Richie shakes his head, smiling, and follows him. Once they make it back to Richie’s dorm room, Eddie collapses onto Richie’s bed and grabs for him. Richie shushes him.

“Hold on, sweetheart, I gotta get you ready for bed,” he says quietly, slipping Eddie’s shoes off and tugging his jeans down his body. Eddie wriggles to try to help him and giggles when Richie presses a soft kiss to his shin.

“Careful—that one’s got a splint right now,” Eddie mumbles.

“I know,” Richie whispers, and he sounds so sad. It doesn't make sense that the heaviness in his tone would be from his shin splint, but Eddie doesn’t have the strength to open his eyes and check. Richie undresses as well and slips into bed beside Eddie, covering them both with the blankets. Eddie curls into his side and mashes his lips against Richie’s shoulder in a way that’s completely unsexy but is very, very sweet. Eddie throws an arm over Richie’s stomach and grabs around blindly for Richie’s hand. It takes a bit for him to catch on, but Richie eventually slips his fingers through Eddie’s and lets them rest intertwined on his stomach.

Eddie is half-asleep when he whispers, “Sorry I act this way.”

Richie turns to press a kiss to Eddie’s forehead and smiles against his skin. “I love you this way.”

“Love you, too,” Eddie slurs. Richie tenses beneath him, but Eddie barely registers it as he lets the dream that’s been begging at the corners of his consciousness overtake him.

 

Richie is almost certain that Eddie doesn’t remember telling him he loves him. Not only was he more tired than Richie has ever seen him—probably exhausted from the force of his emotional turmoil—but he was also completely wasted. Eddie demanded when he woke up that Richie go get him an entire bottle of Tylenol and a .45 caliber. _No reason,_ he said. _My head is fine._ Richie brought him three Tylenol and a full glass of cold water. Eddie looked at him gratefully before demanding more painkillers. Richie had refused by saying three was more than enough, even when Eddie promised he would go down on him if he did. Richie is pretty much certain he deserves some sort of medal or trophy for his immense service to the health of Eddie Kaspbrak and the denial of his own libido.

Richie is not a saint, however, and he does tease Eddie when he’s on his way out.

“I have a secret,” he sings, sitting primly on the edge of his bed with his legs crossed.

“Oh, God,” Eddie groans, whipping around. “What kind of secret could you possibly have?”

“Big one,” he smirks. “Bigger than my dick, probably.”

“Oh, so miniscule. Alright, curiosity sated,” Eddie snarks, turning back around and going to leave the room. As soon as the door is shut, Richie grabs his phone from the side table and calls him. He can hear the ringtone that Richie set for him freshman year through the wood.

_You only used to call me on my cellphone… Late night when you need my—_

“What,” Eddie says flatly. “I’m walking away. You are not hooking me in with this supposed secret.” He is not walking away. Richie can hear him directly on the other side of the door. Richie appreciates Eddie’s dedication to his frustration, though. Eddie’s determination is one of Richie’s favorite parts of him.

“Of course I will. You love me,” Richie smiles.

“I do fucking not,” Eddie groans. He can hear him walking away now. “I’m hanging up.”

“Mm, I think Last Night Eddie would have to disagree with that.” The footsteps stop.

“What do you mean?” Eddie asks, voice reedy and dangerous.

“You told me you love me last night.” He can hear Eddie rushing back to the door as Richie continues talking in a calm, happy tone. “It was very cute. Good spank bank material.”

“Let me in! Let me the fuck in!” Eddie shouts both over the phone and through the door, pounding on it.

“Oh, but I thought you had to go? Don’t you have to get back to that very important brunch date you have with that boy from Econ?”

“He can fucking wait! I don’t care about him! Let me in!” Eddie screeches, sounding too desperate for Richie to continue enjoying fucking with him. Richie gets up and stands at the door.

“What’s the magic word?”

“Fuck you,” Eddie spits, rattling the doorknob as their call ends.

“That’s pretty magical, but not what I was looking for,” Richie smiles, throwing his phone over onto the bed.

“God. Fuck you. Fucking fuck. _Please?”_ Richie unlocks the door and Eddie comes barrelling in, eyes wild.

“I didn’t fucking say that,” he says, chest heaving in the way it only does after a huge race. Richie realizes how nervous he must be and feels bad for torturing him. He sits down on the bed and leans back on his palms, trying to exude a calmness that he knows he isn't capable of. He tries regardless. Eddie is less distracted by Richie’s chest than he used to be after seeing it so often, and he doesn’t even glance down at it. Instead, his eyes burn a hole into Richie’s head.

“Why are you lying?” Eddie demands.

“I wouldn’t lie about that,” Richie frowns. “You think that I’d do that?” Eddie simply shrugs, looking away. “Well, I fucking wouldn’t.”

“Okay,” Eddie whispers. He wrings his hands and Richie feels so bad for him. He wishes he hadn’t said anything at all. “Can we… Can I pretend like I didn’t say it?”

“Say what? It’s already forgotten,” Richie says flippantly, waving his hand in the air dismissively.

Eddie gives him a half-smile. “Thanks.”

“Sure, Eds.” He wants to tell him that his comfortability is the most important thing to him—it always has been, ever since that first day in the locker room—but he can't find the strength needed to push the words out of his mouth and potentially fuck things up worse. He hopes Eddie knows anyway. He hopes that pretending his heart didn't stop at the words on his tongue that he's been dreaming about for years makes Eddie more comfortable. He can pretend like he slept all night and didn't replay the words over and over while Eddie drooled on his shoulder. He knows that Eddie can probably see his dark circles, but he's performed much bigger lies for Eddie’s sake than acting as though he slept at all last night. His suspicion is confirmed when Eddie steps into the space between his legs and thumbs at the delicate skin underneath his eyes. Richie’s eyelids flutter closed and his lips part, overwhelmed by every tender touch Eddie gives him, all screaming _love_ while Eddie hails something much different. All of it makes Richie’s head spin.

“Eds…” he whispers, and he knows he sounds so wrecked, much more broken than Eddie deserves, but when he opens his eyes, Eddie is looking at him with all the love he can't allow to fall off his tongue.

“I’m sorry, baby,” he sighs. Richie’s skin heats up at the name that Eddie has only ever pulled out a handful of times before. “I wish I could be more for you.”

“You're more than enough, Eddie,” Richie rushes, gripping onto Eddie’s wrist, eyes desperate. “You're everything I could've ever wanted.”

“Shut up…” Eddie giggles, looking away bashfully.

“I mean it,” Richie promises. “I really fucking do. I don't care if you can't ever say that. I don't care if you never hold my hand outside of this room. You are more than enough—you're fucking everything, okay?”

Eddie’s eyes are watering where he's looking down at Richie and his lower lip shakes. “I want to. I'm just so scared, Richie. I'm so fucking scared of what everybody else thinks that it forces me into lies I never wanted to tell. I feel like I'm still living a lie even though I'm out of the closet. God, my mom fucking _broke_ me…”

“Your mother can go fuck herself,” Richie spits angrily. “I don't know her, but I fucking hate her. She didn't deserve you. You're too good for her.”

“Thanks, Rich,” he smiles sadly. “I just wish I believed that.”

“Well then, I'm gonna spend the rest of my fucking life trying to convince you that you are.” Eddie’s eyes widen and Richie knows rationally that he just incriminated himself by telling Eddie that he plans to never let him go, but he continues, bowling over his own anxious thoughts that are now screaming at him as a result. “You're talented as fuck and a damn vision, I swear to God. You're funny as all hell and smart enough to outwit those morons in your psych class who think they know what they're talking about when they don't. You smoke me in every game we play to the point where it would annoy the shit outta me if it wasn't you. You're kind to all our friends and you aren't to the people who don't deserve it, which I think is better than if you were just needlessly nice all the time. You are all of those things without your stupid, abusive mother, and even her influence can't change who you are. She didn’t break you. You know yourself—that's a lot better than most people have going for them.”

Eddie stares at Richie open-mouthed for a bit before muttering, “fuck it,” and climbing into his lap to sear their mouths together. As quickly as he does this though, he rips their mouths apart, and Richie is already panting, staring up at him. Eddie touches his fingertips to Richie’s chest and slowly pushes him down onto the bed. Eddie places his hands on either side of Richie’s head and skims his lips down his neck and over his chest. Richie cries out when Eddie’s mouth drags over his nipple, but he continues on, dropping sweet, open-mouthed kisses all over his stomach. He looks up at Richie when he gets to the waistband of his boxers and smiles up at him. It's so fond and gentle and full of love that Richie finds his eyes watering.

“I don't know how to thank you the right way, so let me take care of you. Okay?”

“Eddie, you don't have to…” Richie breathes, leaning up on his elbows to look at him properly. Eddie shakes his head.

“I want to,” he admits quietly. He taps Richie’s hip, encouraging him to lift them. He hooks his fingers into the waistband and drags them down Richie’s legs slowly. “I always want to.” He lets them drop to the floor with the rest of Richie’s clothes and then climbs back up his body, pressing sweet kisses to his ankle, his shin, the jut of his knee, the inside of his thigh where they're a bit spread apart. Eddie gets back up to Richie’s cock and he smiles when he hears Richie breathing hard.

“Eddie…” he sighs, reaching down to touch the side of his cheek gently. “God, I...” He knows he can't say it, but the way Eddie is looking at him makes him wish he were allowed to. He thinks the words as hard as he possibly can, putting all the softness in his eyes that he would put in his voice, letting his mouth part gently and hopes his breath can carry the words he's wanted to say for years. _I love you. I love you. I love you._

“I know,” Eddie whispers, hovering over top of him. “Me, too.”

 

Eddie justifies going out with Jared, the boy from his econ class, later that night because he didn't _technically_ call it a date, and it isn't as if Eddie is truly even taken. Sure, when Jared texted him after their brunch asking him if he wanted so get dinner later that night, he was nervous about saying yes. And sure, as he checks himself out in the full-length mirror in his closet, he feels a little sick dressing up for somebody that isn't Richie. But they're not exclusive. That's the deal. They can do whatever they want with whoever they want.

He doesn't think about how he lied about where he'd be tonight when Richie asked him and the pit in his stomach he gets every time he sees Richie flirting with somebody outside their nuclear group has persisted all day. He knows he'd never really go for Beverly or Bill, that he's just naturally affectionate with people he feels comfortable with. It's other people that Eddie doesn't trust—not that he ever tells Richie any of these jealous tendencies. That would violate the non-exclusivity Eddie has imposed on their relationship. Sometimes he regrets the choices he made with Richie over a year ago when all of this started. But he doesn't know how to go back on it now, so he tries to be comfortable with what they have. At least he has Richie at all.

“Where's Richie t-ta-taking you tonight, Eds? I like your outfit,” Bill smiles from where he's reading Jane Austen on his bed. Eddie isn't sure if it's for work or for pleasure, but knowing Bill, it's probably both.

“Um, I'm actually not going out with Richie,” Eddie says, trying to stay casual despite the fact that he's wringing his hands rhythmically. “Jared Miller, from my Econ class.”

“Oh,” Bill frowns. “I thought… Nevermind. Have f-f-fun.”

“Thanks, Bill,” Eddie whispers. They share a sad, knowing look that only lasts as long as Eddie’s nerves will allow, which happens to be four seconds. After that, Eddie runs straight out of the room without even checking to see if he has his key.

The thing is, Jared is a sweet guy. He's tall and slender and enjoys debating interesting topics. He's intelligent and gushed about his mom back home in Minnesota for six whole minutes during their study date earlier that day—for all accounts, he should be Eddie’s type. In another world, he is. But it isn't another world, it's this world, and Richie got to him first and unknowingly ruined him for all other men. The bastard.

But Eddie isn't rude. Really, he isn't. So he is polite to Jared throughout their date, trying to send off vibes that he's not feeling it, but still wants to remain friends. After they’re finished at the diner he and Richie frequent a few blocks from the campus (Eddie feels disgusting being in it with anybody else), Jared asks him if he wants to go back to his dorm room and keep hanging out. _I'm just having a great time getting to know you,_ he says. _We don't have to have sex, I’d just like to keep talking to you._ His words are innocuous and he's smiling with a fond expression that doesn't seem like a leer, so Eddie accepts. As they walk back to campus, the first strike is when Jared hooks his arm around Eddie's waist. Eddie laughs awkwardly and tells him he's a bit too warm to stand so closely. Jared seems to take this in stride, continuing to lead him to his house which is clear across campus from his own. The second strike comes when Jared tells him in the elevator that he can't wait to talk to Eddie, just the two of them. This confuses Eddie for a moment, telling him that it's been just the two of them all night. Jared just smiles and shrugs. It makes Eddie feel entirely uneasy, and every instinct he has is screaming for him to tell Jared he feels a bit peaky and bail, but he goes into Jared's single anyway.

The third strike comes approximately five minutes later when he sits down on the bed a bit too closely next to Eddie after mixing them drinks. He hands Eddie his and raises his glass.

“To new friends,” Jared grins.

Eddie fakes a smile after they clink glasses. He only pretends to sip his. There's nothing about this situation that he trusts, and the drink smells a bit too salty to just be a gin and tonic, something that Eddie doesn’t even enjoy drinking anyway. He hadn’t asked what Eddie likes to drink and had just mixed him something easy at random. When Jared leans back on his elbows and smiles up at Eddie, he is suddenly reminded of Richie. He wonders where he is, what he's doing right now. He misses him like a physical ache even though he only saw him this morning. This worries him, makes him scared that he's dependent on Richie for company. Eddie told himself he'd never be dependent on anyone else once he left for college, and he's not going to start now. He tries to relax into the situation and smiles at Jared, telling himself that what he's doing is fine. He's hanging out with other people. He and Richie would do well to be a little more open in who they keep for company.

Eddie leans back onto the bed and tries to settle into the situation. This proves to be the wrong move.

“You know,” Jared murmurs, putting his drink down and leaning in closer to Eddie, “you're a very interesting person, Eddie.”

“Am I?” Eddie laughs uncomfortably, trying to inconspicuously shift further away from Jared.

“Mmm. You smell nice, too. What cologne is that?” Eddie doesn't wear cologne—he wears Vera Wang perfume.

“Oh, uh… It's Calvin Klein.” A stupid thing to lie about. He wants to see if he can get away with it. Jared just hums and leans in closer, and Eddie realizes that he has so much power. Lying makes him stronger, at least in the face of distress. He yawns exaggeratedly.

“God, what time is it?” Eddie mumbles, checking his wristwatch. “Oh, shit, it's getting late. I've still gotta study for a Psych test tomorrow.”

“Blow it off,” Jared says, voice almost demanding and not at all fun or teasing in the ways Richie's is when he tries to convince him to skip class.

“Can't. Scholarship kid. Can't have too many absences. Another time?” Eddie starts to get up and that's when Jared grabs his wrist, pulling him back into his space with an iron grip.

“You work too much,” he chuckles, far too casual for the way he's branding Eddie's skin with his touch. He brushes a lock of hair out of Eddie's eyes. His skin feels scalding where Jared touches him in a way that makes him want to burn this asshole to the ground.

“I work enough to keep me afloat,” Eddie grits, tugging lightly on his wrist. Jared doesn't release him.

“You're always so tense, baby… I bet I could loosen you up,” he breathes, yanking on Eddie's wrist and pulling him into his lap.

“Fuck off,” Eddie seethes with furious vigor, scrambling out of Jared's grasp. Surprisingly to Eddie, he goes easily, and Jared just rolls his eyes.

“God, the rumors are true… You _are_ a virgin,” he scoffs.

Eddie wants to scream in his face, wants to pull up his shirt to reveal the series of fresh hickeys on his chest given to him by Richie just before they got brunch. But Jared doesn't even deserve a response. So instead, he just kicks him hard in the shin the way he's seen Richie do hundreds of times before on the field and leaves him groaning where he's slipped to the floor clutching his leg. Before he does though, Jared grits out the words Eddie has always been afraid to hear, the words he tells himself on a daily basis:

“I don't know why anyone would even want to be with you.” Eddie's blood runs cold where he stands in the doorway. “You were just gonna be a pity-fuck and that's all you're ever gonna be.”

Eddie spits on Jared’s floor and then runs.

He doesn't know where he's headed, but the adrenaline in his system starts to wane once he hits the student union at the center of campus and he realizes it's probably better for him to be in public in case Jared decides to come after him. He doesn't know what Jared will do. He needs some stability. He needs someone who he can predict.

He pulls out his phone and calls Richie.

“Hey, babe,” Richie answers after the fourth ring. He sounds slightly distracted and there's music playing in the background, things that Richie only ever plays alone, soft songs with whiny singers. Eddie’s breathing starts to pick up when he hears Richie’s familiar, sweet voice. “What's up?”

“Richie,” he chokes. He doesn't know what else he can say, he's spiraling into a panic attack, so he just repeats his name, wanting to feel the familiar taste of it on his tongue. “Richie. Richie. Richie.”

“Eddie, what's wrong?” Richie rushes. There's some shuffling on his end and the music cuts off. “C'mon, sweetheart, please talk to me. You're freakin’ me out.”

“He…” Eddie remembers faintly that he lied to Richie about where he was going tonight. He has a feeling Richie won't be too angry, at least at the moment, when Eddie is so upset, but he still can't bring himself to tell him he lied, even in a panic attack. He feels backed into a corner, a caged animal once again. “I'm so scared.” It’s the same words he told Richie at the party the day before.

“I'm coming. Wherever you are, I'm coming,” Richie promises.

“Student union,” Eddie chokes out.

“Eds, I'm gonna hang up now, okay? So I can come get you,” he explains. His tone is so gentle and calming and Eddie just wants him _here._

“Okay,” he whispers.

“Go order some of that shitty coffee. I promise I'll be there by the time you're finished with it,” Richie says, and Eddie finds himself giggling despite the fog of anxiety clouding him. Richie is such a bright light even in the darkest of rooms. “Bye-bye, baby.” The name doesn’t feel nearly as dirty when Richie says it.

“Bye, Richie.” The line goes dead and Eddie tries not to feel terrified as he goes to stand in the short line to get a coffee. He gets Richie his absolutely abominable tea order as well (English Breakfast, half half-and-half) and sits down with the two drinks, sipping on the coffee that he trusts to be terrible while he waits for Richie.

It only takes 7 minutes for Richie to come bursting into the student union, wide-eyed and searching desperately for Eddie. He catches the attention of several students, but they immediately lose interest in favor of their conversations. Richie finds Eddie sitting in the corner, away from the windows with his headphones in, and he starts off towards him.

“Eddie!” Richie calls out. Eddie looks up and rips off his headphones, stumbling up towards him. The relief he feels is a palpable force in his body as they collide. “Eddie.” Richie wraps his arms snugly around Eddie's middle, but they don't stay there for long, roaming up and down Eddie's back in calming, sweeping motions. “Hi,” he pants, chest heaving.

“Hi,” Eddie responds, voice small. He's crying a bit now that he’s enveloped in the safety of Richie’s arms, small sobs that shake his body and Richie just holds him tighter. He doesn't ask to know what’s wrong. Not yet. Eddie notices then that Richie is breathing heavily and he wants to ask him why but he doesn't want to pull away, so he simply mumbles into Richie's chest, “you're panting. What's wrong?”

“Oh, I ran here,” Richie responds distractedly. “Used that breathing technique you taught me, the counting one. Wasn't really thinking about anything else but getting to you.”

Richie ran all the way from their building to the student union—that has to be almost a mile, Eddie realizes. The gesture is so sweet and so telling of how deeply Richie cares about him that he wonders why he ever thought he should’ve accepted Jared's invitation at all. He has all he needs here in the tight heat of Richie’s embrace. He doesn't care that they're in public, he doesn't care that all the students around them can see them holding each other, because for the first time since he left Richie's room this morning, he feels safe. He has never wanted to say the words _I love you_ more in his entire life. He thinks if he could just get it out, that would make the truth matter. But as it is, the truth never matters unless somebody else knows it. And he is sure Richie doesn't. Eddie jerks him around, plays hot and cold only because his instinct is to be all in and then when he realizes he's showing too many cards, he pulls away like he's been burned. But Richie doesn't burn him—at least not in the way Jared had, or the way he burns himself. Richie makes him feel like maybe fire doesn't always have to be destructive. Maybe Richie can just keep Eddie warm.

“Eds,” Richie breathes, pulling back slightly. Eddie follows him, grumbling and pulling him back into his own space. Richie laughs and it reverberates throughout Eddie's head where it's pressed against his chest. “C'mon, darling, wanna get you outta the limelight.”

Eddie looks up to find several students blatantly staring at the two of them. They quickly look away and keep chatting once they're caught. Eddie rolls his eyes and nods, grabbing his coffee and handing Richie the tea he bought him. Richie smiles dazzlingly at him.

“Okay.”

The walk back to Richie's is quiet while they sip their drinks. They don't touch except for the occasional brush of the backs of their hands due to walking so closely. Richie still doesn't ask what happened. Eddie is so grateful.

Once they get back to Richie’s dorm, Eddie takes it all in while Richie shoves off the mess of textbooks he had laying on them before Eddie called. It looks almost identical in shape to Jared’s—same single bed, same faintly-colored walls, same small desk—but where Jared’s room had been a poor attempt at minimalistic style, Richie has his personality haphazardly plastered all over his walls. There's photos of Eddie and all their friends pinned up everywhere—on the windowsill and the mini-fridge, on the walls and the bed frame—but the one thing that Eddie never noticed is that Richie isn't in any of the photographs. Richie doesn't take a lot of photos, Mike is usually the one setting them all up for group shots and snapping candids, so why is Richie himself missing from all these shots? Richie is always taking selfies, but none of those seem to be printed. It makes him wonder. It makes him worry.

While he bites his lower lip, examining the pictures and posters on the walls (mostly box-office failures from the 2000s), Richie watches him. He knows he is, can always seem to feel it when Richie’s gaze is on him, but where he usually looks to meet his eyes, this time he avoids them. He's afraid he'll find worry, anxiety, even pity there. Richie has never seemed to pity him, even when he told him a bit about his past with his mother, but Eddie thinks it's never too late to start. He knows he's a basketcase, a freak, a sick and dirty person. This is why he can't ever go farther with Richie in bed than he does, sticks to sweetness and honey because he's afraid if he does anything more, he'll be exactly what his mother told him he was. And now he's afraid to even touch Richie now that he's come down from his panic attack. He's afraid Jared is right. Maybe he's always been right.

Eddie sighs as he realizes that Richie isn't going to push him to talk about this. He's going to wait until Eddie is ready, just as he always does. But Eddie isn't sure he'll ever be able to tell Richie what Jared told him, isn't sure he'll be able to tell him he was with Jared at all. He doesn't think he's strong enough. He doesn't want to disappoint Richie or make him think that he doesn't want to be in _this_ room, trashed to shit as it may be. Eddie wants all of Richie, wants his messes and his insecurities.

He just can't ever tell him that.

He sits down on the bed beside Richie, six inches of space between them, and finally looks at him. Richie does look worried, yes, but Eddie sees no trace of pity there. Of course, Richie hasn't heard the full story yet. _Give it time, Eddie,_ he thinks. _He'll grow to regret you._

“I went out with someone tonight,” Eddie says, breaking eye contact with Richie. He watches Richie's fingers dig into the blanket slightly and Eddie looks away completely, ashamed. “It wasn't a date—not really. I didn't want to do anything with him. I thought it'd be best if you and I tried to see other people.”

“Oh,” Richie says, voice small. His heartbreak is a palpable force in the room.

“It was a mistake,” Eddie says, just as quietly but with an intensity that shocks even him. “It was a huge mistake.”

“Why?” Eddie is silent for a while as Richie's mind turns. “Wait, Eddie… He didn't…?”

“He tried to, I think,” Eddie whispers. He hears Richie swallow and fist his fingers into the sheets tightly. “I'm pretty sure he slipped something into my drink. Luckily, I've learned enough from a big college campus to never take something from a stranger. Um, I left before he could really do anything. But I didn't leave without some… emotional bruises, if you will.”

“What kind of emotional bruises?” Richie asks, voice tight and so on-edge that Eddie's hand flies to his unbiddenly. He covers Richie's hand with his own and slowly untangles his fingers from their iron-grip on the bed covers and braids them together with his own instead. He doesn't look at Richie, still too afraid, but as he stares at their joined hands, he can see Richie turn his head slowly to face him in his peripheral.

“He said some shit.” He pauses, so afraid to utter the words out loud, but he knows he should to get it all out of his system and work on trying to forget it. “He said that he doesn't know why anyone would want me. I'm just a pity-fuck. Yeah.” His voice is hollow and so entirely convinced that Jared was right.

“Who?” Richie asks, voice tilting dangerously. “Who fucking said that absolute bullshit to you? I'll kill him, I swear to God I will.”

“Don't,” Eddie laughs, but the sound is empty of amusement. “He isn't worth it.”

“No,” Richie agrees, squeezing Eddie's hand, “but you are.”

Eddie finally tilts his head up slowly to look at Richie, and he doesn't know how he could've ever been afraid he would pity him. His eyes are filled with nervousness but distinct adoration, and Eddie sighs softly at the sight. He nods and gives him a watery smile.

“Here—I have an idea.” Richie suddenly scrambles off the bed and pulls Eddie up with him, mumbling, “Up, up.” He strips the blankets off the bed and grabs all the extra pillows, sheets and blankets he has in his closet that all belong to the school. Eddie isn't sure where he got them, but he doesn't ask. Richie takes off a few pictures from the walls from where they were being held up by thumbtacks and climbs up onto the bed, tacking a blanket up above the window frame.

“What are you doing?” Eddie giggles.

“What does it look like?” Richie asks over his shoulder. “I'm making a blanket fort!”

“Why on earth are you doing that?” Eddie demands playfully.

“I think we need to be kids for a little while,” is all Richie offers in response. Eddie sighs, a cross between put-out and incredibly fond, and climbs up on the bed to help Richie construct the fort. They put all the pillows on the perimeter of the fort and tuck the blankets underneath Richie's mattress. Once they're finished, they climb inside and shut the blinds, knowing they can't see the stars from the city anyway.

“I didn't know you were a blanket fort professional,” Eddie comments with a smile once they're settled.

“There's a lot you don't know about me, Kaspbrak,” Richie grins mischievously. “Wanna see another trick?” He pulls his phone out from his pocket without waiting for Eddie to respond and turns on the flashlight, settling it in the crook of his thighs. It's pointing out onto the blanket and settling it alight. Richie asks Eddie if he's ready to have his mind blown, and Eddie just shrugs. Richie puts his hands in front of the light and manipulates them so that they're in the shape of a bird. He moves his fingers a bit and Eddie watches as the wings flap in the shadow on the blanket above them.

“Very nice,” Eddie admits, giving him a golf clap. “Five stars.”

“I can also make a dick,” he says, already moving his hands, but Eddie slaps them down into his lap.

“You will not,” he says sternly, pointing at him with the hand at isn't covering Richie's.

“Aw, you're no fun,” Richie whines, but he's smiling crookedly in the way he does when he's comfortable. It puts Eddie more at ease to know that Richie isn't keyed-up the way he can usually seem. Richie grabs Eddie's hands and pulls on them until they're both laying side-by-side with their hands clasped in the middle. The light from the flashlight on his phone is shining up towards the ceiling now between their bodies and setting a glow about their little created universe. Richie smiles at him and Eddie feels like the kid he was never allowed to be. _Soon,_ Eddie thinks. _I'll tell him soon._

“I've never had a friend like you,” Eddie whispers. “I've never had _anyone_ like you… You're… You're like magic.”

“Oh, yeah?” Richie prompts, trying to keep his voice level, but it still sounds strained.

“Yeah. Like Peter Pan or some shit,” Eddie muses.

“Ooh, I like that! Are you my Wendy Darling, darling?” Richie smiles. Eddie’s lips pucker in an attempt not to smile back, but he fails.

“Sure.”

“Fun!” Richie giggles. He sobers after a few seconds, but the smile never leaves his face as he strokes his thumb over Eddie's knuckles. “I wish I knew you when I was little. You would've been my best friend.”

“Oh, and I'm not now?” Eddie teases.

“No, you are… You definitely are…” The look in Richie's eyes right now makes Eddie feel like his insides could catch fire at any moment, that his heart could grow wings, break out of his chest and fly away. “But you're a lot more than that, too.”

Eddie smiles and nods, despite the fact that his past, his present and the preservation of his future are all screaming at him not to. To _run._ He doesn't. Instead, he says, “I know what you mean.”

 

When Richie wakes up in the morning to Eddie clinging to him, whimpering and shaking. The first problem with this is that this isn't the first time that has happened. The second problem is that Richie _still_ doesn't know what to do when it does.

He blinks into consciousness with Eddie wrapped around him. The mid-morning sun is coming in through the slats in the blinds and illuminating the makeshift canopy Richie had made for them the night before, still mostly intact despite Eddie’s tossing and turning. At first, Richie doesn’t even realize anything is wrong and pulls Eddie in closer, a smile blooming as his eyes slip closed once again.

Eddie’s little cry is a punch to Richie’s gut. His eyes snap open and he immediately looks down at Eddie, noticing now that he’s physically shaking where he’s got a loose grip on Richie’s shirt, occasionally tightening and then releasing again. He’s fidgeting in a way that makes Richie nervous, and when he hears Eddie mumble _stop_ he immediately cards his fingers through Eddie’s hair insistently and rubbing at his arm that’s slung around his middle.

“Eddie…” he whispers. “Sweetheart, please wake up.” His soft voice is doing nothing to penetrate Eddie’s dream and Richie sighs, resolving to raise his voice only enough to wake Eddie up. “Eddie baby, c’mon. Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey. Time to let me see those pretty eyes.” He pets Eddie’s cheek with his thumb gently, attempting to ease him into consciousness. “C’mon, Eds.”

Eddie sniffs and spasms slightly. His fist tightens into Richie’s shirt and his closed eyes squeeze even further shut. He digs his nose into Richie’s collarbone and breathes in, as if trying to orient himself to the waking world and something safe. “Goddamn,” he slurs.

“Hey, sunshine. Nice of you to join me,” Richie says, voice deceptively light for how nervous he still feels. He’s certain Eddie can feel his heart racing when he presses his cheek to Richie’s chest, but there’s nothing he can do to change it and Eddie says nothing about it.

“Hey,” he responds, voice thick with sleep. It floods Richie with a joy he can’t explain that he gets to see Eddie like this.

“You wanna talk about it?” Richie asks, just as he always does. Every time Eddie has a nightmare, Richie always asks him if he wants to talk about it and every time without exception, Eddie has declined with no hesitation, brushing it off and moving off of him to get on with his day. Richie tries not to think too hard about if it’s because Eddie wants to forget about it or if it’s because Eddie doesn’t trust him. Operative word being _tries._

This time, however, there is a pause before Eddie’s answer. Richie forces himself to breathe evenly, conscious not to hold his breath in anticipation like he has the urge to. Eddie shifts uncomfortably, almost self-consciously, and Richie searches for the right words to take back his question, but then Eddie is speaking, slowly and quietly.

“It was a bunch of things. The kind of dream logic that makes sense when it’s happening, but is hard to suss out in the waking world.” Richie nods while Eddie takes a fortifying breath, trying to gather up the courage to keep speaking. Richie thinks he might be the bravest man he’s ever known. “It started out about Jared, kinda… That’s the guy from last night, Jared. From my econ class.” Richie nods again. He remembers him from the party after the game—the way he’d been looking at Eddie while the two of them danced hadn’t been something he’d easily forgotten. “He was kissing me but I couldn’t move to get him off of me. And then my mom came in—I guess we were in my house in Maine—and she started… talking about how sick I am. How I need to fix what’s wrong with me. She, uh… I guess I never told you about this, but when I was young, she lied to me about me being sick. She gave me these fake pills and a placebo inhaler. She was convinced I had asthma because of my panic attacks. She couldn’t admit anything could ever be wrong with my head or whatever. She has Munchausen syndrome by proxy, if you remember that from Abnormal Psych. So in the dream, she pulled out my inhaler and I could just… I forgot about how it felt, when I would take a hit of it. Like all of a sudden, all the panic in my body was gone. It was all in my head, but I just… felt the relief coursing through my body.”

Richie isn’t sure he’s ever heard Eddie talk for this long about something serious. He’s heard Eddie rant about anything and everything for hours on end—characters on TV treated poorly by writers, his shitty Creative Writing teacher and how Eddie could better teach the class (he’s literally texted Richie whole lesson plans in the middle of class before), fuck, Eddie can literally recite whole John Mulaney bits at the drop of a hat—but never once has he ranted about anything personal. Richie feels like this moment is holy somehow, opening up a new part of their relationship he never thought he’d be allowed to have. Richie presses his fingers into the tight muscles in Eddie’s shoulders, trying to relieve the tension he feels, and is uncharacteristically quiet as Eddie continues.

“I feel… I dunno, like an addict of some sort. Like I need the inhaler to survive. That’s the way my mom made it seem when I was a kid, and I blindly trusted her simply because she told me to. I used to be so naïve, Rich—I was like an entirely different person back then. It’s so hard for me to trust people now. I don’t know if it’ll ever get easier.” Eddie sighs deeply, body finally relaxing slightly into Richie’s touch as he finishes speaking.

“Do you want me to respond?” Richie asks softly.

“Woah, woah, woah—the famous Trashmouth Tozier is _asking_ to speak?” Eddie snorts, lifting his head to look at Richie.

“Old dogs can learn new tricks,” Richie shrugs, brushing a lock of hair out of Eddie’s eyes.

“I mean… If you have a response, you can say it. I’m not in the business of stifling anybody.” Richie smiles at him fondly, eyes soft and loving, before quickly trying to mask his expression with something that betrays his emotions less. He probably fails, but he is certain it’s a valiant attempt.

“I think you’re probably the bravest person I’ve ever met,” Richie says, echoing his thoughts from earlier, aiming for casual but landing somewhere between too intense and very, very in love. Eddie’s eyes smoulder but he looks disbelieving. “I’m fucking serious. After all that shit your ma put you through, I can’t believe you’re… I mean, you _run._ That must’ve been horrible for you in school with Mommy Dearest breathing down your neck.”

Eddie nods. “It was. She didn’t want me to run—said I’d get hurt or trigger my quote-un-quote asthma.”

“And look where it got you!” Richie insists, shaking Eddie’s arms a bit. “You’re a fucking track star at Stanford University! Your mom, as good a lay as she is, can fuck right off if she thinks something you’re so blatantly talented at could ever hurt you.” Eddie goes to hit him for the sexual comment about his mother, but his hand lands softly on Richie’s shoulder due to the rest of his sentence.

“You’re…” Eddie marvels, shaking his head. “How do you do it?”

“I don’t know what you’re referring to,” Richie says in a high society Voice, but his cheeks burn at the implication in Eddie’s words.

“You make everything okay.” Eddie leans up to kiss him sweetly; it’s chaste in a way most of their kisses aren’t—the kind of kiss that leads to nowhere and is just kissing to kiss—and it has butterflies flooding Richie’s stomach. His hand sweeps up and down Eddie’s back slowly and Eddie cups his cheek gently. He pulls back and his smile is just as sweet as his kiss was as he strokes the delicate skin underneath Richie’s eye with his thumb. Richie’s breath gets caught in his throat as he looks back.

“You look good like this,” Richie says quietly. He means to say more, maybe about how the truth suits him, but Eddie looks excited suddenly, like he’s remembered something important as he starts groping around in the sheets.

“Lift up,” he demands, and Richie confusedly sits up. “Ah! You were laying on it.” Eddie grabs his phone and swipes to the camera. He takes a few photos of Richie first, humming softly about how the lighting looks nice, and then grabs at Richie’s shirt and pulls him back down.

“What’re you doing, Eds?” Richie asks as Eddie flips to the front-facing camera. Their faces fill the screen and Richie laughs. “Feeling artsy?”

“No. You just don’t have any pictures up of yourself in here. I thought maybe if you had one that you liked with someone you… care about… you might put one up,” Eddie explains, mouth moving oddly around the words, like he’s trying to be careful.

“I-I didn’t even realize, honestly,” Richie breathes, looking up at the walls. There are a few photos that can be seen from the inside of their fort—one of Beverly giving Bill a piggyback ride, one of Stanley and Mike cuddled together on the couch in their shared apartment while everyone watches a movie, and one that’s partially covered of Eddie. Mike had taken it for his darkroom photography class and had given one of the bad prints to Richie. It’s one of Richie’s favorite photos he’s ever seen and begged Mike for a copy, which he readily agreed to. Eddie is curled up in one of the plush armchairs in the library reading _Never Let Me Go_ by Kazuo Ishiguro with the most somber, serious expression Richie has ever seen. The print itself is breathtaking, with the sunlight streaming in through the large picture window behind him. Richie moves the blanket slightly so he can see the whole thing and smiles softly at it. He hears the camera go off and Richie looks at Eddie with a playfully shocked expression.

“Are you taking photographs of me without my permission, Mr. Darcy?” Richie asks, Voice fluttering and dropping his hand limply to his chest. “Well, I’ll be!”

“Shut up,” Eddie laughs, sliding in closer to Richie so their shoulders overlap. He aims the phone high above their faces and takes a total of fifteen shots. Most of them are silly, but there’s two serious ones that Richie finds himself liking the most when they flip through them. One is of Eddie looking at Richie after he’d just pulled a particularly horrendous face for the camera. Eddie’s gaze is stern but a fond smile stretches over his face as Richie laughs. The second is of Eddie leaning up to kiss his cheekbone, taken directly after the last shot, and Richie’s laughter had faded by that point, but his smile is so wide that he can barely see his own irises. He asks for Eddie to send them all to him, but he knows which two he’s going to print out.

On the way out, Eddie is shrugging on one of Richie’s hoodies discarded on his bedroom floor, this one with the Fender guitar logo on it. Richie is almost certain he doesn’t have any of his own sweatshirts anymore, but he can’t find himself minding at all with the way Eddie smiles into the fabric, absolutely drowning in it as he pockets his phone and looks at Richie, leaning against the door. He suddenly looks shy as he plays with the strings of the hood. He goes to chew on one of the ends before quickly remembering that Richie does the same and pulling it away from his mouth.

“Thank you, Rich,” he whispers. Richie frowns and walks closer to him.

“For what?”

“I don’t know… Coming to my rescue, I guess. I hate ever feeling like I need saving, but—”

“Hey,” Richie cuts him off softly, putting a hand on Eddie’s hip. “You didn’t need saving. You kicked that douchebag’s ass all on your own. Just because you may sometimes need help doesn’t mean you that ever need saving.”

Eddie looks up at him and meets his eyes. His expression flits through a series of complicated emotions, too fast for Richie to keep up, before finally settling on utterly blank. It unnerves and unsettles Richie in a way he hasn’t felt in a very long time.

“I’ll be seein’ ya, Rich,” Eddie says, voice so flat that it sounds as if he’s trying to force it into that state. Richie’s eyebrows screw in and he presses his hand more firmly into Eddie’s hip, trying to commit the feeling of him in his hands to memory.

“Yeah…” Richie says quietly. Eddie moves away from his hold easily and slips out the door. “I’ll be seein’ ya.”

 

It’s been two weeks since Eddie has seen Richie. Fifteen days. 360 hours. 21,600 minutes. He’s just about ready to lose his goddamn mind. _Just because you may sometimes need help doesn’t mean you ever need saving._ The words have been rattling around in Eddie’s head for the entire end of April, and now that it’s officially May, Eddie has resolved to stop thinking about it altogther. Stop thinking about him.

Eddie isn’t proud of many of his actions. He’s proud that he got into Stanford. He’s proud that he got away from his mother. He’s proud that he can hold his liquor and complete all his assignments on time and evade Bill’s worried line of questioning. But what he’s not proud of is how he ran from Richie. He knows it was shitty to cut and run after such a cathartic and metamorphic night. He’s sure Richie is freaking the fuck out. Actually, he _knows_ Richie is freaking the fuck out. He’s gotten a total of 32 text messages from him in the last fifteen days. Usually, this would be a low number—Eddie is certain that Richie would super-glue his phone to his hands if he could, and he texts Eddie every inane thing that goes on around him that he thinks Eddie might find enjoyable. But they all went unanswered. Eddie thought about blocking him instead of simply ghosting, making a clean break, but in the end, he couldn’t do it. He likes to know that Richie is still out there, still able to be contacted. The last two texts were by far the hardest to read, even over the anxious worrying and the apologizing for things that he didn’t need to apologize for.

 **Richie <3:** hey, eddie. so i’m sure you’ve gotten my texts and shit. but i’m just letting you know that i won’t bother you anymore. you’re free from the clutches of richie tozier! hooray! i hope you do well at the meet this weekend. i’ll still be rooting for ya. good luck. just in general  
**Richie <3:** sorry

That had been sent last Friday and he hasn’t heard a word from Richie since. He hasn’t even been as active on Twitter or Instagram—Eddie would know, he’s had all of Richie’s social media accounts on push notifications since his freshman year. Where Richie used to comment on every single picture of Eddie and all their friends, he’s been absolutely silent. He’s only tweeted once—even more uncharacteristic—and it was simply to wish everyone luck at the upcoming finals. It’s the last two of the season and they’ve been doing incredibly all year, but it’s the college cup semi-finals and they’re up against Akron who has the same scoring rate that Stanford does. They’re traveling to Seattle to play this coming weekend, and Eddie is trying not to mope about the fact that he can’t hide in the stands and watch Richie play. Well, technically, he could—Bill had invited Eddie to come with them, but he declined without giving a real reason why. There’s going to be a viewing party in the lounge of their building for both the semi-finals on Friday and (hopefully) the finals on Sunday, but Eddie doesn’t feel right about supporting Richie where he can’t see it anyway.

He overheard Bill talking on Facetime with Beverly yesterday night coming back from a shower, and what he heard made him feel so utterly guilty. They were discussing Richie’s steady and rapid decline in mental health over the last two weeks, how he’s not doing well at practice and not showing up to classes due to being too hungover. They’re worried about him. But when Bill said he was worried about Eddie just as much, Eddie had barged in and started changing without making it seem like he’d heard a word of their conversation. Bill swiftly told Beverly that he’d call her later and hung up. When Eddie looked over at Bill, it was clear that he knew Eddie had heard him, especially when he softly asked Eddie if he was okay. Eddie simply shrugged with a fake smile and answered, “Why wouldn’t I be?”

But Eddie is not okay. He’s not. He hasn’t been for a long fifteen days, and he knows Richie isn’t either. But he still can’t find the strength within himself to contact Richie, to talk to him at all, even if it’s just to wish him luck at the games this weekend. He wishes he had a better excuse than just fear and realizing that he’s grown too dependent on Richie for comfort, but he doesn’t. This is what Eddie does: he runs.

The thing about Stanford University is that it’s fucking huge. Even with Richie and Eddie living in the same building, they haven’t seen each other once—not even in passing. But Eddie should’ve known he wouldn’t be able to avoid him forever, just like he wasn’t able to avoid Jared. Despite the fact that Jared is in his Econ class, he’s still seen him twice since their disastrous date. He isn’t sure what Jared told his friends, but both times Eddie passed them by, they would snort and whisper about how Eddie’s the virgin Jared got in good with. Eddie simply flipped them off without looking at them and kept walking. Beverly told him that was probably best, not getting involved—as Eddie said, he isn’t worth it.

But Richie is. And when he passes him in the hallway at 1:30 A.M. on the Wednesday before the game, Richie is stumbling back to his dorm by himself, more drunk than Eddie has ever seen him. Eddie is on his way to the showers, preferring to do it late at night and in the afternoon while most people are in class so he doesn’t chance anybody being around. He’s been showering twice a day since he stopped talking to Richie, sometimes three times, something he hasn’t done since he lived in Derry. He feels anxious unless he’s perfectly clean. But all those thoughts fly out the window when he sees Richie tumble out of the elevator.

He pitches into the wall opposite the elevator and Eddie rushes over to him before he even realizes it’s Richie. “Hey, man, you okay?” he calls out as he abandons his shower supplies by his dorm room door and runs over to the man. Richie immediately recognizes his voice and his head shoots up and looks down the hallway, squinting.

“Eds?” Richie asks, voice unreadable. Eddie sees that his glasses are off, hopefully in a pocket of his somewhere, and he knows he should run. Richie wouldn’t even know the difference, probably too drunk to remember a tiny interaction as the one they’ve had. He knows what he did to Richie was awful and selfish and objectively terrible because he was acting out of the preservation of his heart. He knows he should leave Richie alone to mourn the loss of their relationship in peace.

Eddie never said he does what he knows is right.

“Yeah, it’s me,” Eddie says softly, approaching him cautiously. “Where’re your glasses?”

“Oh, I dunno,” Richie shrugs, feeling around in his jeans’ pockets. Eddie sees the arm of them hanging out of his floral shirt and Eddie reaches for them instinctively. As soon as his hand reaches out, Richie goes still. Eddie knows Richie’s fight, flight or freeze response is usually impaired while he’s drunk, swinging wildly depending on the situation, but he’s never seen it activated in response to him before. Eddie feels like he’s approaching a wounded animal. He realizes the magnitude of what avoiding Richie did to him like a gunshot to the chest. Richie’s biggest fear is being forgotten, and that’s exactly what Eddie made him think happened—that he forgot about him. Eddie doesn’t think he will _ever_ forget about Richie, but he feels like he’s gotten the wind knocked out of him at the sight of Richie’s frightened eyes and rigid posture. He wishes he could be braver than he is. He wishes he could be the man Richie sees him as.

“They’re right there,” Eddie says, trying to keep his voice even as he points to the glasses hanging out of Richie’s breast pocket. Richie looks down and his eyes light up in recognition.

“Oh,” he says softly, grabbing them and putting them on. They’re smudged to shit, and in any other situation, Eddie would wipe them off for him. He doesn’t. “Bev’s a good girl. Didn’t know she did that.”

“Yeah… She is…” Eddie murmurs, thinking back to the conversation between Beverly and Bill the night before. He’s glad Beverly is there for Richie right now to make sure he doesn’t make too many mistakes.

“Well, I gotsta get back to my dorm room,” Richie says, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder. “Gotta rest up for the big trip.”

“Right, yeah, of course. Good luck—you’re gonna kill it,” Eddie stumbles, the words rushing out in a confusing and anxious jumble that almost no one has ever been able to fully decipher.

“Thanks, Eds,” Richie says with a small smile. “I hope so.” Even drunk, Richie can still understand him. Eddie realizes the enormity of all he’s lost—he pushed away the one person who’s ever completely understood him. And for what? To preserve his reputation as an angry asshole? To make sure Richie never knows he fell completely in love? Why? What’s the point? Eddie has lost track of the reasoning why keeping up this charade is so fucking important. He wants to take care of Richie in his drunken state, cuddle with him until he falls asleep and make sure he wakes up without too terrible of a headache. But he can’t. He lost that right. He gave it up.

Richie turns to walk away as Eddie stands there, dumbfounded. Richie turns a little ways down the hall and his expression is pensive and a bit confused. “Hey, Eddie? Why won’t you text me back?”

It’s such a simple question. Richie deserves an answer, but Eddie can’t find anything good enough to warrant his behavior. In the end, he goes with a simple answer. “I’m scared.” He’s used this excuse with Richie so many times he’s lost count by now. “I’m sorry,” Eddie says, emotion flooding his voice. “You don’t deserve this.”

Richie gives him a peaceful half-smile and shrugs. “Maybe not. But I signed up for all of you when I fell in love, so.” And with that, Richie turns the corner of the hallway and out of Eddie’s line of sight, leaving him shocked and utterly heartbroken in the empty hallway.

 _He loves me,_ Eddie thinks, over and over on a loop as he walks back to his dorm room, dazed. _He loves me. He loves me. Fuck, I have to fix this._

He breaks out into a run towards his dorm room and goes to open the door before tripping directly over his discarded shower supplies. He looks down at them and realizes he’s lost the urge to shower for the third time that day. He doesn’t feel so dirty anymore. He bundles them up in a heap and shoves them onto the floor of his and Bill’s room when he comes barrelling in. Luckily, Bill isn’t asleep just yet, mindlessly scrolling on his phone, but he still bolts upright in bed when Eddie charges into the room. Both their chests are heaving from adrenaline and Eddie closes the door gently so as not to disturb the peace of the room any further.

“Bill?” he asks when he turns back around to face his best friend. Bill looks confused and worried in the soft light of the moon. “You know the game coming up on Friday?”

“Yeah…” Bill prompts guardedly.

“Is that invitation still valid?”

 

For many others, Friday is just another day on campus. Some people are holed up in their rooms studying for their upcoming finals, some are out partying, some are out on dates. But for Richie Tozier, this Friday is game day.

He’s been preparing for this game all season. Stanford hasn’t made it to the semi-finals since Richie’s enrollment and he’s been trying not to stroke his ego about the fact that since Richie became the first-string goalie, they’ve only lost two out of the 23 games they’ve played so far this season. It’s been a whirlwind and Richie is a bit of a legend around campus by now, so every time he’s been invited out to go drinking with someone every since Eddie stopped talking to him, he’s readily accepted. He’s not trying to drink away his sorrows. Really, he’s not. He’s merely an esteemed member of the Stanford campus going out to greet the people. Sure, he’s blacked out nine out of ten times, but who’s counting? He’s just having fun. There’s no crime in it.

And sure, his grades are slipping. And sure, he’s been doing so poorly at practice, his coach has threatened to take him off the roster for the finals—to which Richie rioted until his coach had sighed and told him he better get his act together by game day. And _sure,_ he’s been touchy and angry and picking fights with all of his friends. He half-expects them all to drop him the way Eddie had. He wouldn’t blame them if they did. He’s trying not to take what Beverly said to heart about the fact that he’s trying to push them all away because he doesn’t think he deserves them. What the fuck does she know, anyway? (A lot. Beverly Marsh is more intelligent than Richie by a mile, both in their classes and emotionally. But whatever. He can ignore his emotions if he wants. Beverly isn’t the boss of him.)

He had driven to Seattle in Stanley’s car with him and Mike. Ben, Bill and Beverly wanted to go together—justified, Richie thinks. They’re probably gonna discuss this week’s episode of The Bachelor or the best Jane Austen protagonist or some gross shit like that. Who cares? Romance is for the birds, Richie thinks.

He’s ignoring the fact that Eddie hasn’t contacted him at all, not even to wish him luck at the game Richie has been anxious about for months. Whatever. If Eddie wants to be done with him for reasons unbeknownst to anyone, that’s fine. He’ll just keep blacking out drunk every night and picking fights with the only people who genuinely care about him and fucking up his team’s chances at winning this game. Who cares, right? Caring is for the birds, too.

Right out of the gate, Richie is playing sloppy. He’s taunting players and riling up his teammates. He’s jumping around and not using the techniques to keep up his stamina that he knows he should. He knows he’s about to be taken out of the game. He knows he’s got a good shot of being taken off the team because of this. _Get your act together before the game, Tozier,_ his coach had warned. He’s screaming at him from the sidelines, and even though Richie hasn’t let a goal go through, he’s not at his best. He knows right now is when he needs to be at his best—the pressure is on and the whole school is watching him. It’s being televised on ESPN for shit’s sake.

But who cares, right? Not him. Richie Tozier doesn’t fucking care.

At least, he thought he didn’t.

The voice that Richie would recognize anywhere cuts through the cacophony just before the end of the first half. There’s about 14 seconds left on the clock, the score is 0-0, and their team’s got the ball right up by Akron’s goal. They’re so close to scoring, and Richie is leaning against the goal post, posture cocky, when he hears it.

 _“You’re a wanker, Number 9!”_ Richie immediately looks over to the overcrowded stands and sees Eddie leaning over the edge of the front row with the rest of their friends, looking harried and wild and absolutely terrified. Richie stares at him, jaw dropped. He can’t react. He can’t move. He can’t breathe.

And then the buzzer goes off, signaling the beginning of half-time. Richie is still left staring at Eddie as the rest of their teammates jog over to the bench to regroup. _He came,_ Richie thinks. A smile breaks over his face, big and broad and true—a new dawn. Eddie smiles back.

“Hey, Tozier!” Bill shouts from the bench. Richie tears his eyes away from Eddie unwillingly to find Bill with a huge grin waving him over. “Get your ass over here!”

He goes to Bill first, an awed smile on his face. “How…?”

“He asked Wednesday night if he could come. I know you were worried that he w-wouldn’t want to. But it seems like he had a change of heart,” Bill shrugs, looking so glad to see Richie genuinely happy for the first time in weeks. He tilts his head to where Eddie is still leaning over the edge of the stands, watching them carefully. “You gonna go say hi?”

“I—” Richie doesn’t know what to say. “I don’t know if I should, Bill. He broke my fuckin’ heart without even telling me why, you know?”

Bill nods and claps his shoulder. “I know. He was going through something bad, though. It seems to me that he’s f-fi-finally ready to explain himself.”

“I’m — Like, I know I shouldn’t be, but I’m kinda scared,” Richie laughs.

“So is he,” Bill says, voice filled with meaning. “Go be scared together.” He shakes Richie lightly and then pushes him gently so that he goes stumbling backwards a few steps. Richie laughs and nods. He turns to Eddie who has broken off from their friends to stand awkwardly by the stairs. He looks a little shy, like he isn’t sure if his display was wanted or not. Richie has the urge to comfort him, but he’s also gun shy when it comes to that urge now, especially after what happened when Eddie left the morning after his date with Jared (more commonly known in Richie’s head as _that asshole_ ). He jogs over to Eddie, resolving to try to dissolve the tension between them with his most favored coping mechanism—humor.

“Hey, Eds,” Richie says, slapping his hands on the barrier between them. Eddie takes a tentative step towards him, presumably so their conversation isn’t too public. “I like your makeup.” He points to the little red _s_ painted on Eddie’s cheek. “Can’t wait to smear it all up.”

“God,” Eddie chokes on a laugh, shaking his head and blushing lightly. “You’re insufferable.”

“Mm, yeah, I am. But you still like me, right?” Richie asks, attempting to keep the blatant hope out of his voice. Eddie leans his arms on the top of the barrier and bows over it a bit as he leans in closer to Richie.

“Well, I certainly didn’t scream that back there to make you think otherwise,” Eddie smiles. And there’s still so much left to talk about, so much to explain. Richie isn’t ready to just forget about everything that’s happened. But he thinks the fact that they’re both happy right now is a good goddamn start.

“Tozier! Stop making googly-eyes and get over here!” his coach yells. “Team meeting to discuss the second half!”

“Well!” Richie crows in a Southern belle Voice, touching his chest without looking away from Eddie. “I’ll be! Will my man wait for me by the water fountain and keep singin’ his praises of me?”

“Bet on it,” Eddie grins, winking swiftly and backing up towards the stairs. “Keep those rascals out of that goal box, Tozier. Can’t have people thinking I’ve got a crush on some commonner.”

“A crush, eh?” Richie smirks. Eddie rolls his eyes, stepping off the landing and onto the first step.

“Don’t let it go to your head,” he says before walking towards the rest of their group.

“Aye aye, sir!” Richie salutes loudly before running over to his team with a huge smile on his face.

“Who was that, Tozier?” one of the defenders, Alex, asks him. He looks curious and not at all judgemental, so Richie just shrugs and slings an arm over his shoulder.

“A cutie pie who came to cheer me on,” he responds, unable to keep the pride out of his voice.

“And me!” Bill shouts defiantly from a few feet away.

“Ooh, a lover’s quarrel between our best midfielder and the star goalie? Whatever will the team do!” Richie cries.

“C’mon, Rich, before Coach Wilson beheads you,” Alex laughs as he shoves Richie off of him. He barrels into Bill and wraps his arms around his neck. Bill laughs, despite grumbling about how they’re both sweating buckets, and hugs him back.

“Everything good?” Bill asks. Richie nods and presses a smacking kiss to Bill’s forehead.

“Everything’s great, Big Bill. Now let’s go kick some Akron ass.”

 

Richie is truly on fire in the second half. Their coach even puts him in as center forward for a few minutes in the last quarter, his alternate position. Richie assists the first goal of the game, scored by Alex. They scream together as Richie picks him up from around the waist and runs with him back to their positions. Eddie, the rest of their group, and the entire stadium cheer for him raucously, and Richie’s bright smile as he points to Eddie in the stands just like he always does rivals a burning star. His coach puts him back in the goal after that, but it was amazing to see Richie actually running the field and helping to score, even if he did make Eddie blush with his display.

They’re down to the wire with 25 seconds left on the clock, the score still 1-0, and Richie looks more focused that Eddie has ever seen him. It’s like he’s an entirely different player now that he and Eddie have made peace. He only makes smarmy comments after he deflects a goal. He even showed off a bit at one point when making a throw-in by doing a front flip with the ball to the ground in order to gain momentum the way Eddie remembers Richie saying Bill taught him. The crowd absolutely ate that up, going wild enough to shake the stands. Even the Akron supporters loved it—everyone loves a good trick. Richie just smirked and ran back into position.

Eddie is alternating between trying to keep up with watching the ball, watching the clock, and watching Richie. He’s bitten his nails down to the quick, so he’s substituted that with wringing his hands obsessively. Beverly sees this from her place beside him and grabs one of his hands, lacing their fingers together and squeezing tightly. Eddie is grateful for this, and he grabs the hand of Mike on his other side as well. Mike smiles at him and grabs Stanley’s hand. Beverly watches this happen and goes to hold Ben’s, and suddenly, they’re an unstoppable force of support for two boys whom they all adore with their whole hearts.

Bill looks dead on his feet after being in midfield for almost the whole game, but he’s pushing past his exhaustion and continuing to run up and down the field. Beverly calls out to him, screaming that she loves him, and this seems to put a spring in his step, remembering that all of his friends are watching him. The ball is suddenly stolen by an Akron player with Robinson on the back of his jersey and he takes off down the field at top speed, unable to be interfered with by other players. He looks huge, taller than Richie is by a mile, but Richie squares his shoulders and shuffles around the goal box, waiting to meet his match. Eddie looks to the clock and sees that there’s only 7 seconds left—if the Akron player makes this goal, they’re going to have to go into overtime due to a tie game. Robinson swings to kick and the whole stadium holds their breath as they watch it sail through the air. It’s going towards the top corner of the goal box and Richie jumps to try to deflect it.

The smack the ball makes against his palms seems to resonate throughout the whole stadium.

Everyone screams. Some in defeat, some in elation, but everyone in the entire stadium is screaming. The five members of the Losers’ Club in the stands break their joined hands to clap and screech along with them.

 _“Holy shit!”_ Eddie screams, jumping up and down with his hands on Beverly’s shoulder to give himself more leverage. “They won! They fucking won!”

The buzzer sounds. The game is over and Stanford is going into the finals. Richie collapses on the ground in a heap, overwhelmed by the support coming from the stands. Eddie knows he’s never played for a crowd this big before. They’re all screaming for him. Eddie is so goddamn proud.

Beverly suddenly breaks out of Eddie’s grasp and pitches forward, clamoring out of the aisle and towards the barrier. She doesn’t even look back to see if anyone is joining her—she knows they are. Eddie, Mike, Stanley and Ben all push past the people beside them and once they make it to the edge, Eddie vaults over it easily like a hurdle at a track meet. He helps everyone else down and together, they run to where the Stanford Cardinals are all crowded around Richie, pulling him up off the ground. Eddie hears their coach yell out that only players can be on the field, but there’s laughter and disbelief in his voice. Eddie thinks that man must be fucking nuts to ever doubt Richie Tozier.

Beverly runs straight into Bill and gives him a smacking kiss on the cheek, telling him he was the star of the show. Bill chuckles and points to where Richie is being lifted up onto Alex’s shoulders, saying that he’s glad to relinquish that crown.

Alex parades Richie around with pride, hailing that Richie is king of the game. Richie laughs loudly and grabs onto Alex’s shoulders where his knees are wrapped around them to steady himself. Everyone in the stands is chanting _“Cardinals! Cardinals!”_ and Eddie can’t help but laugh along with Richie. He’s never felt so much pride or excitement or _love_ for another person before. He thinks this might be the purest form of love there is—watching somebody achieve their dreams and getting to be right there next to them when it happens with a smile on their face and a furiously beating heart.

Richie looks around at his teammates and spots Eddie in the fray. His elated smile turns soft very quickly and Eddie blows him a kiss. Richie giggles, and when he catches it, butterflies spread throughout Eddie’s stomach. Alex spots him, too, and shouts something up to Richie that Eddie doesn’t catch. Richie laughs heartily and nods. Alex puts him down and Richie runs full-tilt towards Eddie. Unlike at the track field a few weeks ago, Eddie catches him and he doesn’t even register the sweat soaked through Richie’s uniform or the stench coming from his clothes. He just laughs and picks Richie up to swing him around. Richie squeals and kisses the top of Eddie’s head, able to easily from the higher vantage point, and Eddie realizes he isn’t scared. Despite that he knows the game is being recorded live, he doesn’t have that familiar fear of public affection coursing through him like he usually does. The loop of _what will people think?_ is suddenly quieted and all he can think about is how happy he is for Richie—how happy he is in general.

“We fucking did it, Eddie!” Richie screams, cutting himself off with a laugh.

“I knew you could!” Eddie puts him down and brushes a lock of hair from Richie’s eyes quickly, tucking it behind his ear. Richie looks dazed and starry-eyed, perhaps from a combination of Eddie’s affection and the crowd’s support. “I’m so fucking proud of you.”

“Thanks, Eds. Did you like that assist?” he asks haughtily with a smirk.

“I did,” Eddie laughs.

“All for you,” Richie says. His teammates are starting to migrate towards the locker room, but Richie is rooted to the spot they’re standing in, unable to look away from Eddie’s soft expression.

“Yeah?” Eddie prompts.

“Sure. Always,” Richie says, trying to stay casual, but Eddie sees right through it. _I signed up for all of you when I fell in love._ He’s certain Richie doesn’t remember their interaction in the hallway on Wednesday night, but Eddie has had the words playing on loop in his brain for the last 48 hours. He wants to hear Richie say it again.

He wants to say it back.

“Get outta here, Tozier,” Eddie chuckles, pushing at his shoulders a little bit. “You’ve got a couple of adoring fans waiting in the wings.” Eddie points to their friends on the sidelines and they wave extravagantly, hooting and catcalling at them. Eddie rolls his eyes as Richie laughs. He looks back at Eddie, marveling at him.

“Can’t believe you came,” he murmurs, shaking his head slightly.

“Of course I did,” Eddie smiles, grabbing his hand and squeezing it. “There’s never an instance where I’m not on your team.”

Richie squeezes back, eyes shining, and he swoops down to press a kiss to Eddie’s cheek before taking off towards their friends and dragging Eddie along with him. Eddie’s cheeks are burning by the time they get to their friends, and they all take turns looking at him knowingly before congratulating Richie. Beverly is the first, and she all but tackles Richie to the ground. Richie stumbles a bit, but he catches her and swings her around several times with a laugh.

“Hey, Bevs,” he giggles after he puts her down. “Like the show?”

“Did I _like_ it?!” she screeches, turning to the rest of their friends. “He asks if I _liked_ it!”

“She definitely liked it,” Ben supplies with a smile. “I was pretty sure she was going to cut off circulation in my hand.”

“Or bust our eardrums,” Eddie muses.

“Traitor! Like you weren’t screaming just as loud!” Beverly cries, pointing at Eddie.

“I never said I wasn’t,” Eddie shrugs.

“Yeah, I’m sure—Eddie’s a real screamer,” Richie smirks. Everyone groans as Eddie punches him in the arm.

“Can’t believe we’re going to have to deal with this for a whole nother year,” Stanley moans.

“It’s a hell of a lot better than when they were fighting, though,” Mike points out, pulling Stanley into his side.

“Yeah, yeah…” he grumbles around a smile, wrapping his arm around Mike’s waist.

“Tozier! Showers! Now!” Coach Wilson yells from the entrance of the field before turning to follow the team into the locker room.

“Duty calls,” Richie says. “Hope you guys won’t miss me too much while I’m gone.”

“I think we’ll manage,” Ben smiles. “Say hi to Bill for me, I didn’t get to see him before he ran off.”

“Sure, Big Ben. Ha! Big Ben! Like the clock!” Richie cries with a shrill laugh. “Oh, fuck, that’s a good one…”

“How many of us are you going to put _big_ in front of the name of before we have to cut you off?” Mike laughs.

“Well, _certainly_ Eddie,” Richie says seriously, pulling a squirming Eddie into his side. “Mmm, yeah, definitely Eddie.”

“You’re so fucking gross!” Eddie shouts, pawing at his chest to try in vain to extricate himself. “I can’t even believe I like you!”

“Oh, sure you can,” Richie smiles sweetly. Eddie sighs harshly, but he smiles back. Richie gives him a quick kiss to the forehead before releasing him and running backwards. He points at the group one by one. “No leaving to the hotel. We’re going out celebrating.”

“Rich, are you sure that’s a good idea?” Beverly frowns. “You’ve gotta be at peak performance for Sunday.”

“Just a couple of drinks—nothing major. Promise promise,” Richie says. He runs off into the locker room, and just as he rounds the corner, Eddie realizes that he never told him… well, anything.

“Fuck!” he shouts, turning to the group. “I’ve gotta tell him why I’ve been AWOL!”

“You… didn’t already?” Ben asks, confused.

“No! I didn’t have enough time when I talked to him at halftime! I mean, we made up and shit, but… he doesn’t know… Fuck! I’ve gotta go see him,” Eddie frets, wringing his hands like he always does when he’s nervous. Beverly puts her hand on them to steady them and nods.

“It’s okay, Eds. We’ll get you in there.”

“How?! There’s a lot more security at the big games than the ones at home,” Eddie says, eyebrows pinched nervously.

“We’ll figure it out,” she says as they hear the door swing shut to the locker room. “Text Bill, tell him to meet us at the door in ten minutes—we’ll do the rest.”

“Okay…” Eddie says, whipping out his phone. He sees a text came in from Richie only a minute ago and three missed calls from his mother, not surprising to Eddie. He taps the text from Richie and smiles at what he sees. He responds quickly before shooting the text to Bill.

 **Richie <3:** miss you already xoxoxoxoxo  
**Eds <3:** Fucking sap. <3

When he looks up, Beverly is already gone, having taken Ben with her, and finds Stanley and Mike pulling him to the stands.

“C’mon. Bev’s gonna schmooze the coach,” Stanley says, “but we have to get off the field before that guy over there with the mower literally murders us.” Eddie looks over to see a man sitting on a giant lawnmower glaring at them.

“Whoops,” Eddie chuckles, running towards the barrier and jumping it. He helps Stanley and Mike climb up, and they sit in the mostly empty stands, waiting for Beverly to text.

“Hey,” Mike starts carefully, “you don’t have to tell us, but… how long has the thing with Richie been going on?”

Eddie looks down, picking at the skin around his thumb. “We’ve been hooking up since freshman year.”

“Wow,” Mike breathes.

“That’s a long fucking time,” Stanley comments, voice sharp. Eddie knows what he’s insinuating—that’s a long fucking time to not tell anybody.

“Yeah. I, uh… It was my idea not to tell anyone.”

“Obviously,” Stanley snorts. Mike levels him a look that makes Stanley fall silent.

“I was just so afraid of… everything changing, I guess. You both remember how I treated Richie at first—I was miserable to him. I couldn’t handle the pressure of everyone knowing that I really don’t hate him at all,” Eddie sighs. “Even with you guys, things would’ve been different. I mean, things are _going_ to be different now that you all know.”

“Eddie,” Mike says, voice soft, “not to burst your bubble or anything, but we’ve all suspected something more between you two for well over a year now.”

Eddie whips his head up to stare at Mike wide-eyed. “What.”

“Yeah,” he chuckles. “I mean, you dance with him at every party, you always sit next to each other at movie nights, the way he looks at you—”

“How does he look at me?” Eddie cuts in a bit desperately.

“Like you’re the only person in the room,” Stanley shrugs. “It was all very obvious to me at least. We weren’t sure about your feelings, but we knew Richie definitely felt something strong from the start.”

“What the fuck…” Eddie whispers, staring off into space blankly. He can’t process this. Their friends knew the entire time?

“It’s okay, Eddie,” Mike says, reeling him into his side by the shoulder. “You’re allowed to like him. This is a liberal campus. No one’s gonna judge you, least of all our friends.”

“That’s not it,” Eddie says, shaking his head distractedly. “My mom, if she finds out I’m dating him, she’ll…” Eddie can’t finish the sentence. _Hide it, Eddie,_ he still hears in his head. _Unpalatable. Dirty._

“Honestly, Eddie, if your mother doesn’t appreciate how happy he makes you, then she’s a shitty mom,” Stanley says, voice flat with a bit of an edge to it, like he knows how Eddie feels. Stanley doesn’t often talk about what it was like living at home, but Eddie knows that Stanley lives in his and Mike’s apartment year-round instead of going home for holidays and breaks. This doesn’t insinuate a happy home life, but Eddie doesn’t want to pry. “From all I know of her, she’s a shitty mom regardless.”

“Stan,” Mike hisses, but Eddie holds up a hand.

“He’s right, Mike. He’s…” Eddie trails off as he feels his phone buzz in his hands. He looks down to see Beverly has texted.

 **Biv Morsh:** south entrance move quietly

“God,” Eddie laughs, “what the fuck kind of weird heist is this?”

“A stupid one,” Stanley says.

“A worthy one,” Mike says at the same time. They all get up and move towards where Beverly told them to go. They don’t speak, but there’s a tenseness in the air as Eddie thinks about what he’s going to tell Richie. The truth seems like the best option, but he knows he could lie and Richie would be none the wiser, or at least probably act that way. Richie has always accepted Eddie’s lies, but Eddie wants to finally let him know that this is real. He knows it’s not going to be easy for him, but he hopes it will be worth it. He thinks not only does Richie deserve the truth after all this time, but he actively wants someone to see him fully for the very first time. It’s a horrifying prospect, but he wants this to be real. He wants to be someone’s boyfriend, despite his mother’s voice rolling around in his head. He wants to be _Richie’s_ boyfriend. He hopes, despite all the shit he’s put him through, that Richie wants that, too.

 

Richie and Bill are discussing the events of the game in the locker room, but something seems fishy. All their teammates have already showered and left to traipse around the city, for one. Another odd factor is that Bill keeps obsessively checking his phone. The weirdest part of all though is how he isn’t seeming to read the fact that Richie wants to go back out and see Eddie. Bill has always been a master at reading people’s emotions, but right now, he seems to be purposefully continuing the conversation long after Richie has already insinuated that he wants to go out and see their friends after they showered. It all seems a bit odd to Richie, but he isn’t pushing it verbally—especially because he’s a bit nervous to see Eddie as it is.

Now that the adrenaline has worn off, he’s realizing that Eddie never explicitly told him why he ignored him for two straight weeks. He just showed up at the game and Richie went along with it and forgave him immediately. He doesn’t want to say that he feels taken advantage of, because that would be overselling his feelings, but he does feel distinctly uncomfortable with it all. He knows he and Eddie barely had time to talk before Richie got called back to the team. He’s hoping he gets some sort of explanation some time tonight. If he doesn’t, he honestly isn’t sure how to proceed.

Richie knows that Eddie has a lot of skeletons in his closet, and he’s never wanted to push him into talking about them, especially considering he and Eddie were never officially dating. But at this point, Richie has realized that they have been dating for a long time without ever labeling it. They never sleep with anyone else, they come to each other first whenever they feel like shit or have something exciting happen to them, they have shared things that they didn’t ever expect to when this started.

Richie isn’t stupid—he knows that Eddie didn’t expect to develop feelings for Richie when they first hooked up freshman year. But Richie thinks he has—at least, he hopes he has. He hopes Eddie’s late-night confession of love can’t be just chalked up to drunkenness, because if it was just Eddie being drunk and grateful, Richie is in deep shit. Falling in love with the person you were supposed to only have meaningless sex with is almost definitely against the rules. But the thing is, their sex never felt meaningless. It was always full of fond looks and explicit consent and soft touches.

Richie wasn’t a blushing virgin when he first hooked up with Eddie by any means, but he certainly never had sex the way he and Eddie do—like it means something. He never got explicit confirmation about it, but Richie theorizes that Eddie had never had sex before Richie. However, Richie had several causal relationships with people before Eddie. It was never something that Richie thought about too deeply afterwards. He never had feelings for the person before he fucked them, or even really afterwards. With Eddie though, from day one, Richie wanted to make him laugh and text him photos of dogs he saw on the street and find out what makes him think, what makes him angry or happy or sad. And now that he gets to, he knows this is what being in love is like—wanting to make someone happy and getting the chance to.

He just has basically no idea where Eddie is at. He knows from the party at Mike and Stanley’s that Eddie has no idea either—at least, that’s what he said. Richie has never called Eddie out on a lie of his, even when caught in it. He doesn’t ever want to make Eddie feel uncomfortable, but more than that, he never wanted to give Eddie an excuse to run from him. He somehow did anyway without ever knowing what triggered the cold feet, but now that Eddie is here, able to be _asked_ what made him want to escape, he simultaneously wants to know and wants to avoid the situation entirely.

He’s almost grateful for Bill’s uncharacteristic motormouth at the moment.

But then, Bill looks down to his phone and cries out in joy, bolting to the door mid-sentence.

“What the fuck…” Richie chuckles, peeking out of the aisle to see him unlock the door and open it to usher none other than Eddie inside. Eddie waves behind him, whispering that he’ll text them, and he and Bill come walking towards him. Richie darts behind the row of lockers before Eddie can see him and takes a steadying breath.

“Okay, Rich. This is it,” he whispers, shaking his head sharply. “Don’t fuck it up.”

Eddie and Bill round the corner and despite Eddie looking wracked with nerves, he also looks just as shy as he’d been at halftime. He can’t meet Richie’s eyes for more than a second at a time, darting around. Richie waves and Eddie waves back. Bill sighs fondly and touches his palm to the middle of Eddie’s back, urging him forward.

“Guys, you gotta talk,” Bill says, a note of finality in his voice. “It’s been long enough of this weird d-d-dance. Right?”

Eddie sucks in a sharp breath and nods, looking up at Richie when he responds, “Right.”

“Okay. I’ll be outside by the c-c-cars with the rest of the gang whenever you guys are ready. Take your time—there’s a l-lot to discuss.” And with that, he leaves the locker room.

They stare at each other for a long while, searching each other’s expressions, trying to suss out where to go from here, until Richie blurts out, “I wonder if anybody else is in the building—I know you’re big on exhibitionism.”

Eddie just stares at him, dumbfounded, and Richie is momentarily terrified that his mouth fucked everything up like it always seems to. But then Eddie bursts out laughing. “I missed you so fucking much,” he sighs, throwing himself onto Richie in a secure hug, holding onto him as tightly as he can. His back is slightly arched due to the fact that his arms are a vice grip around Richie’s neck, and Richie, almost on impulse, wraps his arms around Eddie’s lower back and pulls him closer, bodies fitting together seamlessly. There’s no heat in this moment, but there’s still passion, and this more than anything else, more than Eddie’s drunken confession a few weeks ago, more than every fond look or sweet kiss, _this_ is what makes Richie certain that Eddie loves him. Because there’s still passion even when the heat is absent.

“Fuck,” Richie croaks, voice cracking with emotion, and he buries his face into Eddie’s neck. “Fuck…”

“I guess I’ll take that as an ‘I missed you, too,’” Eddie says, trying for playful, but he sounds just as affected as Richie at being close to him for the first time in weeks. It felt like so much longer to Richie. He doesn’t do well when he feels abandoned, and he knows this about himself by now, but Eddie leaving had confirmed all of his worst fears—he wasn’t good enough, he was a person meant to leave, he wasn’t loved. Richie thought several times about finding a warm body to numb it all, but in the end, every time he thought about it, his mind flashed to Eddie. Eddie underneath him, Eddie’s soft eyes on his, Eddie telling him that he was scared, that he was sorry. Richie felt the urge to wait for him. He thought giving it until the end of the year was fair. After seeing him in the stands at the game today, Richie thinks that maybe hope isn’t the worst thing in the world to have.

Eddie pulls back a little, and Richie does as well. They look at each other, eyes wet, and laugh softly. Richie takes him by the hips and sits down on the bench, pulling Eddie down with him to sit on his lap. They look at each other for a long while, arms looped around each other loosely, just trying to keep touching each other after being starved of it for so long. It looks to Richie like Eddie is building up the confidence to say something, so he keeps quiet despite his nature screaming at him to do otherwise.

“I’m sorry,” Eddie eventually says, hanging his head slightly. “You deserved better than to have me ghost you for two weeks with no explanation.”

“Do you wanna try giving me an explanation now?” Richie asks. “I-I don’t wanna pressure you into anything, but—”

“You should pressure me. I’ve been a complete asshole,” Eddie sighs. As if he knows Richie is going to try to refute that statement, he continues on. “Don’t say I haven’t been, because I’ve lied enough for the both of us combined.”

Richie’s eyebrows furrow in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“I just keep — I keep fucking _lying._ To everyone, about everything. Little things, big things, important things, it’s like I can’t stop. But I don’t wanna be that way anymore. I mean, I do…” He trails off with a chuckle, shaking his head, and then looks up at Richie. “But maybe not so much. Maybe not with you.”

“What have you been lying about?” Richie asks carefully. His mind is in overdrive. What could Eddie have possibly been lying about for so long that Richie hasn’t even picked up on it? He knows the little lies are what get Eddie through the day and make his life easier to live, but he never thought he’d lie about anything big.

“How I feel… about you.” Richie’s eyes widen and he immediately jumps to the worst possibilities. Eddie is breaking up with him, he never had feelings for him at all, Richie was just a warm body to him. Eddie seems to read the fear on his face and slides in closer, laying his head on Richie’s shoulder. Neither of them are able to speak for a few moments, but Eddie breaks the silence. “I love you.” It’s an admission so quiet that Richie wouldn’t have ever been able to hear it if not for the silence of the locker room. But he does hear him and his hands clutch Eddie’s shirt tightly in shock.

“You…” He can’t even get the words out. The idea that Eddie, that anyone loves him without alcohol in their system is too much to handle. He never thought he’d deserve this moment—especially not with Eddie. Eddie is far too good for him, deserves someone prettier, someone smarter, someone nicer. And yet, here he is, in Richie’s lap, at Richie’s game, rolling his head to smile up at him tentatively, as if he doesn’t know if it’s reciprocated or not but wants to say it regardless.

When he realizes that Eddie is waiting for him to respond, his brain quickly catches up and pulls Eddie tighter against himself, finally letting the words he’s wanted to say for so long roll off his tongue. “I love you so fucking much, Eddie. You’re the most incredible person I’ve ever met. I love you.” He laughs a bit hysterically. “Holy shit, I love you, too.”

“You say this like you just figured it out,” Eddie giggles. “I caught up ages ago.”

“No way,” Richie says, shaking his head defiantly. “I’ve loved you for years.”

“I’ve loved you longer!” Eddie argues, head shooting up to glare at Richie. He tries to keep talking, but Richie starts laughing too hard to listen properly. “I’ve loved you since I saw you taking that stray kitten to the infirmary freshman y—stop laughing at me, you idiot! Let me tell you how much I love you!” He swats at Richie’s shoulder scoldingly, and Richie tries to tamper down his laughter.

“I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing at the fact that we’re arguing over who loves who more like teenagers,” Richie says with a fond smile, still giggling.

“Well, we’re only a year or so out. We’re allowed. And it’s me, by the way. I love you more. Obviously,” Eddie sniffs.

“Oh, of course,” Richie says, nodding with the most serious expression he can muster. Eddie sees right through it.

“You don’t believe me!” Eddie scoffs. He leans in close, and suddenly, he’s everywhere, and Richie just wants to kiss the shit out of him, but he’s still talking. “What can I do to prove it to you?” he asks, voice low and teasing and smile sweet like honey.

“Well, I think every queer person in that audience sufficiently understood,” Richie smirks.

“Oh, please—you think there was a single queer person in that audience besides our friends? It’s _soccer,_ Richie. No one’s going to a soccer game for the gay content,” Eddie says, rolling his eyes.

“Well, they got it anyway,” Richie smiles brightly.

“They sure did, but it’s not like they don’t at every game you inevitably point at me in the stands of,” Eddie laughs.

“Don’t act like you don’t love it.” Eddie smiles down at him, eyes soft, and Richie is absolutely tired of not having his mouth on his own.

“I never said I didn’t.” And then, just like they were always meant to, Eddie leans in and captures Richie’s lips in an achingly slow kiss. It’s full of heat but the passion that always seems to consume them is missing. They’re just kissing to kiss with no real motive behind it, and Richie wonders how he missed it—Eddie truly fucking loves him. He couldn’t believe it when he heard it the first time, and when Eddie asked to pretend like it didn’t happen, he accepted it because the idea that Eddie loved him was too much to bear. That these feelings that have been making a home inside him for three years could ever possibly be reciprocated. No, Richie planned to live his life with Eddie only getting scraps of his love. But with Eddie’s arms wrapped loosely around his neck, toying with the still-damp curls on the back of his neck, licking into his mouth just as he’s done so many times before, he feels full for the first time in his life. Richie sighs and when it fans over Eddie’s cheeks, Eddie smiles slightly into their kiss.

This kiss is nothing like any of the ones they’ve shared before—it’s like a fucking Disney kiss or something. It feels scripted somehow, like someone is waiting in the wings to call _cut!_ But then Eddie changes his position so his body is pressed flush to Richie’s, legs dangling behind Richie’s back, and he knows that Eddie doesn’t expect this kiss to end here. There’s a promise of more time behind every drag of his lips, and Richie’s head swims with possibility. They can hold hands when they walk to class, they can kiss each other goodbye at the diner, they can call just to see how the other is with no ulterior motive or worrying about what the other is thinking. Because now, there is the known undercurrent of love staining their words and touches, and Richie feels light-headed suddenly. He pulls back, gasping for air, and when Eddie looks at him, he realizes that this is everything he wants. Right here, in this dank and musty locker room. He could stay there forever, wrapped up in Eddie, and he wouldn’t mind.

He feels Eddie’s legs swing excitedly behind him, and Richie smiles warmly at him. “Do you wanna go out and see our friends? Let me buy you a drink?”

“Oh, no! You are buying none of your own drinks tonight!” Eddie hails. “We are buying whatever your heart desires.”

Richie’s eyes flash. “That was a stupid statement, Eds.”

“Why?” Eddie asks, eyes narrowing. “How much trouble could you possibly get into?”

 

“We’re not buying you a flaming vodka shot.” They’re all walking down the street, having parked at Seattle College, and are on their way to Pony. This bar apparently is a converted 1930s gas station, complete with fire pit and patio. Richie had just googled _gay bars in seattle_ and this was the first result. Eddie honestly thinks it sounds haunted, but whatever, he did tell Richie and Bill they can choose any bar they want. He was surprised he didn’t go for The Unicorn, a bar with a literal arcade inside it, but Richie said it wasn’t gay enough and Bill said Richie might never come out. Apparently, the level of gayness is a big factor in Richie’s bar of choice. “Does Pony even sell flaming vodka shots? Either way, no.”

“Aw, c’mon, Eds! Live a little!” Richie calls out from his place beside him. He’s got his arm hanging loosely over Eddie’s shoulder while Eddie clutches Richie’s waist tightly, like he’s afraid to let go or else Richie will start doing cartwheels in the street. He’s happy—very happy—and while it’s lighting Eddie up to see, he’s worried Richie will do something stupid. Richie has a propensity for doing stupid things when he’s very happy or very sad. He’s not so worried about him drinking himself silly tonight—that’s always been more of a Very Sad Activity. What he’s more worried about is Richie doing something impulsive, like dancing in the street or giving a homeless man with a dog all his money. Richie is too good a person to not have a chaperone when he’s happy.

“I’m living just enough,” Eddie says. “I don’t want you to die before you get to play the game on Sunday.”

“But we can’t drink on Saturday, and I wanna do something fun! Something exciting!” Richie giggles gleefully. Beverly turns back and levels him a look.

“Richie, you are not doing flaming shots. You’ll burn your face off. ESPN won’t put the camera on you—I know how you’ve been looking forward to being broadcast on ESPN2 and letting everyone get a good look at your ugly mug.” She grabs Richie’s chin and shakes it playfully.

“Who you callin’ ugly?” Richie shouts. “I’m beautiful! I’m gorgeous! I’m a magnificent creature borne from sex and grace!”

“Okay,” Beverly snorts, turning back around to keep walking, grabbing Bill’s hand.

“Hey! Listen to me! I’m—”

“You’re okay, Richie,” Eddie laughs, tightening his hold on him. “We all think you’re very pretty, don’t worry.”

“Is that so, sweetheart?” Richie teases, head whipping to look down at Eddie. “Are you included in this faction?”

“Oh, definitely not,” Eddie says, wrinkling his nose. “I would never fall for someone with so much hair on their feet.”

“Hey!” Richie hisses, covering Eddie’s mouth. “No one can know about my monkey feet! You promised!”

“I never promised,” Eddie says, voice muffled and laughing behind Richie’s hand.

“Yeah, Rich, we all know about your freak feet—you once tried to count the hairs on your big toe while plastered at our house,” Stanley says over his shoulder.

“I did no such thing!” Richie sniffs. Eddie kisses his palm gently before shoving his hand off. Richie laughs and pats his cheek condescendingly before letting his arm swing beside him. While he does this, everyone else whips out their phones, pulling up videos from multiple angles of the event in question. Richie shrugs.

“Videos can be doctored.” Eddie hears him scream _twelve, Eds, look!_ through the tinny speakers on Bill’s phone and looks at Richie expectantly. He sticks his nose up in the air. “I must’ve been held at gunpoint.”

“Oh, sure, because the seven of us who all went to the rally for gun control outside the mayor’s office would definitely have held you at gunpoint,” Beverly laughs.

“I never said you weren’t hypocrites.” Before anyone can get a word in edgewise, Richie is shouting again, pointing between his phone’s screen and the building they’re in front of. “We’re here! We’re here! Google Maps says so!”

Eddie looks up at the building, a slate grey and looking absolutely haunted from the outside. It has a giant sign coming out of the top with a silhouette of a pony on it. Eddie grimaces. “You’re right. Unfortunately.”

“Eddie, I think you’re going to feel differently when you see the sign on the door,” Mike says, laughter in his voice. Eddie moves in closer to see that there’s a cardboard sign in the window that reads _ATTN: THIS IS A GAY BAR. A VERY GAY BAR. IF YOU AREN’T QUEER (OR A RESPECTFUL ALLY) GET LOST!_ It was clearly marked in sharpie, and Eddie snorts.

“Okay…” Eddie relents, looking up at Richie with a smile. “This doesn’t look too bad.”

“See!” Richie crows, pulling Eddie inside by the hand. They all flash their IDs to the doorman and he waves them all in, giving Bill a wink.

“Holy shit!” Beverly laughs once they’re inside. “That guy wanted to pounce!”

“Leave me alone,” Bill moans. “I’m not here to make special friends.”

“C’mon, Bill, he’s just looking for a snack,” Richie insists, biting at the air.

“Do not make me regret letting you go to this place, Richard. I’m celebrating, too—let me have my p-p-peace!” Bill cries, and he sounds like a cross between joking and serious, so Richie just shrugs.

“Alrighty. Y’all wanna do shots?” Richie gives a solemn look to Mike. “Except you, Mikey. No crankin’ for you on this hallowed eve.”

“Dare I ask, but what makes this eve hallowed?” Mike asks warily.

“The day Eddie and I got our shit together and Bill and I crushed Akron between our thighs, of course!” Richie calls over the loud music as they get further into the club, swinging his arms around both boys’ shoulders. He smacks a loud kiss to both of their cheeks and they both grimace fondly. “Shots? Shots? Shots?”

“Fine. Let’s drink some overpriced shots,” Eddie sighs.

“Hooray! Oh, happy day—my man’s letting me off the leash! What joy, what immeasurable joy!” Richie cries in a Southern belle Voice.

“In what world have I ever had you on a leash?” Eddie scoffs indignantly. “I resent that!”

“Chill, Eds, it’s a bit.” Richie leans in close, wrapping both arms around Eddie’s shoulders and pursing his lips playfully. “You know I love your leash.”

“No leash! You’re free! Go fuck a dancer for all I care!” Eddie huffs, crossing his arms in the tight space between their chests. Richie doesn’t let up, brushing his nose against Eddie’s gently in a way that relaxes the tension in Eddie’s shoulders.

“I didn’t know you danced. I’d like to see that,” Richie says, voice so low that Eddie nearly misses it. His body heats up at the look in Richie’s eyes, but he continues frowning because now that Richie knows the truth, it feels far better to perpetuate farces than it used to. “I’m only ever fuckin’ you for the rest of forever, anyway, so.”

His tone is so casual, as is his careless shrug, like he truly doesn’t have any interest in anyone but Eddie. It makes Eddie want to cry from relief that they’re on the same page—that they’ve always been on the same page—but instead he simply smiles.

“Ey, there’s my boy,” Richie coos, pressing a sweet kiss to his lips before springing away from him. “Alright! Let’s do this! I wanna see you guys work them thangs!”

“The dance floor is like a 5x5 piece of plywood, Rich,” Stanley frowns consideringly at the center of the room. “There’s not even enough room for all seven of us, let alone other patrons.”

“What other patrons? This is our night! We rule Seattle now! All hail Kings Richie and Bill Denbrough!” Richie shouts. He gets a dirty look from a couple trying to have a conversation at a small table beside where they are in line, but Richie pays them no mind.

“I didn’t know we were m-m-married, Richie,” Bill laughs. “Eddie isn’t going to like this development.”

“Oh, Eddie’s getting the best end out the deal. You and I rule the kingdom and he gets to be my sweet little piece without having to deal with making decisions for the kingdom. You’re honestly getting jackshit out of the deal, Billy Boy. My deepest apologies. You know my heart only belongs to one man.” Richie snakes his arm around Eddie’s waist and pulls him flush against his side.

“I would do just fine ruling a kingdom, _thank you very much!_ I would be fair and just and keep you out of trouble!” Eddie huffs, wagging his finger at Richie.

“It’s cute that you think you can ever keep me out of trouble, Eds. Truly,” Richie smirks. “Valiant effort on your part, five stars. Everyone, let’s give Eddie a round of applause for his brave attempts to control my impulses.” Richie pulls his arm away from Eddie and claps loudly. With the rest of the Losers’ Club clapping, they seem to spur a small ruckus of excitement on line and everyone cheers and claps without knowing why while Eddie stews.

“Wow, his face is turning purple—never seen that before,” Beverly comments. “Congrats, Rich.”

“Why thank you, Miss Marsh,” Richie says, bowing. Eddie hauls him back up by his shirt angrily.

“Stop causing a spectacle at my expense,” he sighs.

“My apologies, babydoll. Didn’t mean to upset you,” Richie says, looking a little worried that he honestly has, and every trace of anger that was in Eddie’s system fades immediately.

“You’re fine, Richie. It’s okay,” he says quietly, tucking himself back into Richie’s side. Richie presses a kiss to his temple. They make it up to the bar, and the bartender gives Bill a smirk, asking him what he’d like and ignoring the rest of them. Bill uses this to his advantage, trying to exude confidence as he stutters his way through an order of six tequila shots. Eddie’s nose wrinkles, not being the biggest fan of tequila, but it does get him drunk fast, so he can’t really argue. The bartender immediately gets out a salt shaker, slices up a lime and lines up six shot glasses. He pours top shelf tequila into all of them, even though Bill only asked for something cheap. He worries at his lip, concerned that he’s going to have to pay for something expensive, but the bartender only asks for the price of their cheapest tequila. Bill’s face lights up and he tips him well, so the bartender blows him a kiss and moves onto his next client. Bill comes away from the interaction looking flustered but pleased and they all let out a childish “oooh!” at him. Bill shoves them away and then realizes they’ve lost Mike.

“Mikey? Mike!” Bill calls out, going up on his toes to look for him. Beverly puts up a hand, tells him to stay with the tray of drinks, and disappears into the thick crowd of people. She emerges a minute later, beckoning them to follow her. They do and they find Mike at a small table waving at them.

“He found a table and didn’t want to lose it,” Beverly explains. They all nod and make it to Mike. Bill puts the tray down with a slap, letting out a relieved breath.

“These folks are very friendly—they keep a-ask-asking if I want to drink with them!” Bill smiles.

“The gays are a friendly bunch,” Richie says as he sets out the shots.

“I know, Richie, I’m bisexual,” Bill laughs. “You’ve known this for years.”

“Yes, of course I know, Billy dear. You tried to hook up with me at a party freshman year and I had to politely decline,” Richie smirks when he spots Bill’s cheeks burning even in the low light of the club.

“He did not!” Beverly laughs, scandalized.

“He did. It was a high point in my life,” Richie confirms, laying his head on Bill’s shoulder and sighing dramatically. “Too bad my heart was already taken by a certain shrimp to my left.”

“Oh, if you think you’re getting any tonight after calling me a shrimp, you’ve got another thing comin’,” Eddie threatens, glaring at him.

“Why are you booing me? I’m right,” Richie says, but when he sees the seriousness in Eddie’s glare, he puts up his hands in surrender. “I take it back, I take it back! Truce! Please! I don’t want you to be angry all night, this is supposed to be a fun occasion!”

“When is Eddie not angry?” Stanley asks.

“It’s been known to happen!” Eddie defends hotly. Stanley splays his fingers, as if putting Eddie on display.

“Case in point.”

“Whatever, let’s drink these stupid shots…” Eddie grumbles.

“That’s the spirit!” Richie cries, pumping his fist. He looks over at Eddie with a glint in his eye. “You wanna do body shots?”

“Absolutely not—that’s so gross,” Eddie frowns. “Plus, there’s no room.”

“Okay, I _did_ just shower like an hour ago…” Richie trails off, humming innocently. “We’ve got the salt and the limes. Up to you!”

Eddie sighs, mulling it over. It would certainly be a spectacle, taking a body shot off of Richie. He’s never done one before, claiming that it would be too easy of a way to transfer germs, but this is Richie. He’s had more than just Richie’s skin on his tongue before. What’s the difference between kissing his stomach and licking salt off of it?

“Okay, _fine,”_ Eddie sighs. Richie’s eyes light up. “But I have to go before anyone else does.”

“Wait, you think I’m letting _someone else_ do a body shot off of me? You’re fucking cracked,” Richie laughs, and Eddie’s body floods with a warmth he can’t put into words. “Nah, just you, sugar.”

“Well, that wouldn’t be very fair to the rest of the group,” Eddie points out.

“Someone else can get up on this table then. You’re the only tongue for me.”

“That’s by far the worst way you could’ve said that,” Eddie says with a smile. They look back up and the rest of the group has already downed their shots with Beverly and Bill, and they have dragged Ben out on the dance floor. Mike and Stanley are watching them, Mike fondly and Stanley worriedly. He seems to be afraid they’ll fall off the platform, but then Mike is tugging at his hand and pulling him into the fray of people with a happy grin, telling him to let loose a bit, just for tonight. His explanation is that they’re celebrating. Stanley sighs, gives his boyfriend a fond look, and allows himself to be maneuvered. Eddie looks away when they start dancing and glances back up at Richie who is still looking at him.

“Looks like it’s just us,” Richie says, leaning an elbow on the table and putting his head in his hand so that they’re at eye level. “No one around to get jealous.”

“Oh, they’ll be jealous,” Eddie promises, tugging up on Richie’s shirt. His eyes light up and he immediately shrugs it off and sticks it into Eddie’s back pocket. He climbs up on the table and Eddie has to steady him several times so he doesn’t fall and brain himself on the concrete floor, but eventually, he’s draped across the table, smiling upside down at Eddie wolfishly.

“You ready?”

“Born ready,” Eddie promises, steeling himself. He licks a line under Richie’s navel, slow and purposeful, and Richie shudders beneath him. He pours the salt onto Richie’s skin, slick with his own saliva, and looks up to find Richie with a lime in his mouth. Eddie smirks.

“ _You_ ready?” Richie nods violently.

“Born ready,” he mumbles around the lime. Eddie chuckles lightly before licking the salt slowly off of Richie's stomach, making sure to get all of it. Richie's chest is heaving by the time he's finished and Eddie distracts himself from his hot gaze by downing the shot expertly and then quickly moving to grab Richie’s cheeks. He steadies his head and takes the lime out of Richie's mouth, their lips dragging together. Richie moans quietly as Eddie presses the lime into his mouth with one finger and sucks hard. Richie rolls off the table ungracefully and Eddie laughs after he spits out the lime, grabbing his shoulders to steady him. He looks around to find a few men watching them hungrily. He remembers his promise to Richie that people would be jealous. His skin burns with the realization that he was right. He knows he should feel embarrassed or ashamed or worried, but they're anonymous here. There's nothing to worry about.

But as soon as Richie rights himself, looming over Eddie, he forgets entirely about everyone watching them and grabs Richie's bare arms. Richie's eyes look liquid in the dark club, and they almost glitter under the flashing lights. Richie frames Eddie's face with his hands and shakes his head in disbelief.

“You're such trouble,” he laughs quietly.

“You don't even know the half of it, Tozier,” Eddie promises, a dark twinge to his voice. Richie sighs harshly, grabbing one of Eddie's hands and dragging him further into the club.

“What—where are we going?” Eddie calls out, trying to be heard over the music when they pass the speakers. Richie doesn't respond or even look back. He pulls Eddie into the men’s bathroom, and once they're in there, he immediately presses Eddie into the graffitied wall and begins sucking a bruise into his neck. Eddie gasps, back arching as he presses further into Richie's space, and tangles his fingers into Richie's hair, trying to anchor himself. This isn't something Eddie does. This is never something he thought he'd even want to do, let alone ever get the chance to do. But Richie pulls out something in him that he didn't even know existed—a wild, uninhibited animal that thrashes and screams and pushes against the confines of its cage until it's broken free.

Eddie tugs on Richie's hair sharply, harder than he ever has before, and Richie groans into his skin. “You don't know what you do to me,” Richie whispers hoarsely.

“I think I may have some idea,” Eddie hums, fitting one of his legs between Richie's and pressing his thigh up against the hard line of Richie's cock. Richie gasps brokenly, grinding down once almost involuntarily before dropping his head against Eddie's shoulder. He shakes his head quickly.

“Nope, not here,” he decides, untangling himself from Eddie who is pouting dramatically.

“I thought you brought me in here for a reason,” Eddie huffs.

“I did. I didn't expect for you to go all exhibitionist on me,” Richie laughs to Eddie's eye roll.

“Like you aren't loving it.” Richie steps in closer as a man stumbles out of one of the stalls, eyeing them curiously.

“I don't want our first time as… whatever this is… to be in the bathroom of a club,” Richie says quietly and intensely.

“Boyfriends,” Eddie says, decisively nodding. “We're boyfriends. If-if you want.”

Richie smiles warmly and sighs as he presses their foreheads together. “I do want. I've wanted that for longer than you know, Eds.”

“Yeah?” Eddie frowns. “I'm sorry I made you wait so long…”

“Don't be, sugar,” Richie says sweetly, kissing Eddie's nose. Eddie giggles softly as the man passes by them, giving them a kind, private smile. Eddie knows the whole world isn't like this club, but with the tequila kicking in and making the world go a little soft around the edges, he wonders why he ever wanted to hide at all. “I wouldn't have wanted it any differently.”

 

Richie has been in a state of suspended shock ever since he saw Eddie from the soccer field. But every time Eddie tells him that he loves him, it's like a shock to his system, waking him up and telling him to remember this. Like he's afraid it's all going to slip away again, fall through his fingers like sand. He’s holding onto to every moment since _you’re a wanker, Number 9,_ tightly enough to bruise.

But Eddie doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, he’s almost revelling in it. Richie knows Eddie doesn’t think he deserves Richie’s trust and affection after all of the lying. But the thing is, Richie’s done his fair share of hiding, too. He never talks to Eddie about his family, he never talks to him about his past and what got him here, what made him who he is. There have been questions dodged and unanswered because Richie was afraid, too. He was afraid to lose whatever it was that they’d tenuously built. He knew it could all come crumbling down without a moment’s notice, that everything he loves could disappear with one wrong word, one wrong move. He’s been walking on eggshells with Eddie for years, and he isn’t sure how to change that now that Eddie has explicitly told him what Richie has been hoping for.

But seeing Eddie so happy and free in this club is making Richie think that maybe he can change. Maybe they can both grow and become what Richie’s always wanted them to be: together.

They’re each four drinks in, both of their stopping points if they don’t want to get too sloppy, but Eddie keeps requesting more. Eddie is happy and touchy when tipsy, but gets sadder the more drunk he gets. Richie is close to reminding him of this, but instead keeps distracting him by dancing.

“Aw, c’mon, Eds, you know how much I love this song!”

“Oh, you do, do you?” Eddie laughs, crossing his arms and leaning his hip against the table. He looks cocky as hell, confident with the alcohol thrumming through him, and Richie suddenly _does_ want to dance with him—and not just as a distraction tactic.

“Okay, I don’t. But I still wanna dance with you!” Richie pleads, sidling up to Eddie’s side and pawing at his hips. “Please, baby?” he breathes into Eddie’s ear, a bit desperate. He can feel Eddie shudder beneath his hands and Richie smirks. He knows how begging weakens Eddie’s resolve.

“Fine. One song,” Eddie relents, grabbing Richie’s hand and dragging him to the dance floor. “But I’m leading. You can’t dance for shit.”

“Fine with me!” Richie laughs, but it dies in his throat when Eddie stops them and turns around. The look in his eyes could burn Richie to the ground where he stands. The alcohol in his system makes it feel like his blood is catching fire. Eddie loops his arms around Richie’s neck, wrists crossed behind his head, and immediately starts dancing. It’s not a bad song, as Richie is now realizing, but it’s made even better by the downright sinful way Eddie is moving. Richie puts his hands on Eddie’s hips a bit belatedly, entirely distracted by watching his boyfriend dance. His _boyfriend._ They’re dating now. No more wondering, no more confusion. Richie gets to keep him when the lights come on, when their bedroom doors open, when they’re asked by strangers. He can’t wait for the first time he gets to tell someone that Eddie is his.

But right now, the whole club might as well know that Eddie is his, and that he is Eddie’s, because there is something about the way their bodies are moving in tandem that seems pre-rehearsed, seems to be a practiced and well-loved part of their relationship. He and Eddie have danced in public before, but only when Eddie was too drunk to care. When Eddie meets his eyes, he can see the clarity in them. There’s no question in his eyes, no hesitance in his movements. Eddie wants this. Eddie wants him.

Richie moves impossibly closer, moulding their bodies together as Eddie grinds against him. Richie feels dizzy with want, so lightheaded that he almost feels faint. He can barely keep track of Eddie’s movements, never knowing what he’s going to do next. It’s almost like sex in a way; the way Eddie can touch his body in an entirely different way than Richie can do to himself, can’t ever predict what Eddie’s going to do. The thought sparks heat low in his gut and he knows his eyes are dark with lust, but at least Eddie’s are mirroring his.

Eddie rolls his chest in time with the beat, a steady thing that never relents. There’s sirens blaring in the song, timpanis drumming along with the bass that Richie feels reverberating in his chest. Richie has no idea when the song’s going to end—it isn’t letting up—but honestly, Richie almost wishes it were endless. He wants this moment on loop in his head and in his life for the rest of time. Eddie slides down Richie’s body sinuously before twisting in his embrace and grinding backwards, losing his sense of rhythm slightly by how turned on he obviously is. Richie pulls Eddie flush against him, lets him feel how hard he is from how good Eddie looks, how incredible he feels against him, and Eddie lets his head tip back against Richie’s shoulder, eyes fluttering shut. Richie mouths at Eddie’s neck sloppily, trying to suck on the skin, but it keeps slipping away from his lips before he can because of Eddie’s movements. He lets his teeth drag down Eddie’s neck and he manages to suck a mark in the crook of his shoulder. Eddie puts his hands on Richie’s where they’re low on his hips, and the touch is so gentle that Richie is reminded of how he is in bed, how his touch is always kind. Richie groans into the skin of Eddie’s neck, hips stuttering as memories of Eddie splayed out beneath him, naked and moaning his name softly flit through his mind at rapid speed.

“Fuck,” Richie chokes out, and he isn’t even sure Eddie hears him—he’s completely wrapped up in the music pounding from the speakers hanging above them. Eddie had made a comment earlier about how if one of them were to drop, it’d crush whoever was underneath them flat, but he doesn’t seem to mind so much right now.

The song is repeating the words _so tell me what you’re waiting for_ over and over, and Richie gets that lightheaded feeling again when Eddie drags his ass over Richie’s dick in the most perfect way, creating a dizzying amount of friction. He’s worried he’s going to come just from this, and he doesn’t want to be alone in that. He shifts his hands so they’re splayed underneath Eddie’s stomach, so low that his pinky drags along the zipper of Eddie’s jeans. He can hear Eddie whine high in his throat when he tosses his head to the side and his mouth drags against Richie’s neck, not kissing, just pressing his lips onto it like he’s too overwhelmed to try to do anything more. Richie takes hold of Eddie’s hips with an almost bruising force and grinds hard against Eddie’s ass. His breath hitches against Richie’s neck.

And then the song cuts out suddenly and quickly switches to something more upbeat, something in a major key, a harsh turn from the minor key and low-pitched unrelenting force of the song before it. Richie thinks it might be Carly Rae Jepsen. In any other situation, he’d be bouncing along happily. Right now, though, he’s entirely focused on Eddie’s harsh, quick breaths against his neck as they both attempt to come down from their high. They’re no longer moving, just standing pressed together tightly, eyes closed and chests heaving.

“Fuck this DJ,” Eddie grumbles. Richie laughs breathlessly.

“Holy shit,” he says dumbly in response. He feels like he’s somehow losing brain cells from how turned on he is. “Can we go back to the hotel?”

“Definitely,” Eddie rushes out, grabbing Richie’s hand and pulling him through the crowd. Richie still feel like he’s got sea legs from what they just did. It was something they’ve never even come close to doing before, dancing like that. They’ve danced together before, sure. At Mike and Stanley’s apartment, in the safety of Richie’s single with all the clothes that seem to always be on the floor no matter what pushed to the corners of the room. But never like that. Never where it’s dark and hot and the music is a bruising force buzzing against their skin and strangers are everywhere.

“Did you Shazam that song, Eds?” Richie asks when they finally stumble outside, the cool night air hitting their flushed skin and sobering them up slightly.

“Yeah. No service in Club Bomb Shelter or whatever though, I’ll have to see what it was back at base…” Eddie grumbles. “Do you wanna call an Uber? Or are you okay to walk the couple of blocks?”

“We can walk. Will give us more time to chill our cocks.”

“Okay, that was disgusting,” Eddie sighs, wrinkling his nose.

“Oh, you know it coulda been worse,” Richie giggles. He tugs Eddie into his side, tucking his hand around Eddie’s waist. Eddie sighs deeply and happily, and does the same while tipping his head onto Richie’s shoulder.

Richie never thought they’d get here. He’s never been happier in his entire goddamn life. He could completely blow the finals on Sunday and still be so _fucking_ happy, because Eddie will be waiting in the stands. Eddie will be by his side on the way home. Eddie will be by his side in general.

 

They stumble into the hotel all the people affiliated with the Stanford soccer team are staying in at approximately 10:15 P.M. It’s a bit early to be so drunk and so touchy, but the man at the front desk just quirks a smile at them when they check-in, words slurred, and laughs _kids_ under his breath. Richie whines about the fact that he takes the stairs whenever he can, says it’s better exercise, but Eddie reminds him that in his state, he’ll probably brain himself on the staircase and need to be taken off the roster for the finals due to a head injury. Richie gasps and nods violently, shuffling Eddie towards the elevator hurriedly.

Richie and Eddie are giggling the entire ride up in the elevator. Richie’s face is pressed into Eddie’s neck, and he isn’t even kissing him, just murmuring about how much he missed Eddie, how glad he is to be his boyfriend, all the while pawing at his hips, his chest, his stomach, any part of him he can gain access to. Eddie sighs and looks heavenward at the mirror on the ceiling of the elevator. He thinks they make a pretty good sight with Richie’s hair disheveled and splayed across Eddie’s shoulders and Eddie’s cheeks burning brightly. He slips his phone out of his pocket and tries to inconspicuously take a selfie, but the shutter goes off loudly, echoing in the small space.

“Spaghetti!” Richie gasps, stumbling away from him. “You traitor!”

“Whatever…” Eddie mumbles, locking his phone without even checking if the picture came out and shoving it angrily back in his jeans.

“Aw, is my sweetie pie _embarrassed?”_ Richie asks gleefully, crowding Eddie against the wall once again with a giggle.

“Leave me alone,” Eddie grumbles, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Never! Never again!” Richie crows, bouncing excitedly on his toes. “You can’t get ridda me now! Stuck to you like coral or some shit!”

“Or like a leech…” Eddie grouses, looking at Richie out of the corner of his eyes. He finds Richie with a broad smile, his glasses pressing hard into the apples of his cheeks, and Eddie finds himself smiling at the sight. He tries to tamper it, but he’s drunk and a little bit in love—sue him. “Or a parasite.”

“Mmm, baby, you gotta stop talkin’ dirty to me in public, you know how your insults turn me on,” Richie smiles into Eddie’s neck, pressing a sloppy kiss there. Eddie knows they’re probably going to have sex tonight, but he’s also sure that it’s not going to be the most graceful thing they’ve ever done, especially when the elevator dings and Eddie shoves Richie through the open doors, pitching him forward until he’s stumbling into the wall.

“God, if you wanted to get rough, all you had to do was say, Eds…” he grumbles, rubbing at his shoulder that got the brunt of the impact. Eddie crowds him into the wall, ghosting his hand over his hurt shoulder and using his other to thumb at Richie’s parted lips.

“Consider it said,” he says lowly, and Richie’s eyes light up in excitement before darkening.

“You sure, Eds? I know you’re not really into that kinda stuff…” Richie murmurs against Eddie’s thumb.

“I never said _that,”_ Eddie smirks before it drops into something more neutral. Opening up is hard, as it turns out, but it’s a little bit easier when he’s drunk. “I just needed to be okay with all of it before we did anything… Um…”

“Weird? Freaky?” Richie supplies, leaning in closer to Eddie with each word.

“No, dumbass,” Eddie laughs, shoving him lightly back against the wall. “Just… more. Something more.”

“Okay. But you know I don’t mind, right? Your pace is my pace. Slow and steady wins races, as they say,” Richie hums. Eddie smiles softly at him.

“You’re so good,” Eddie swears, full of emotion. “Fuck, I love you so much.” He says it in a rush, words slurred together, but Richie’s smile still outshines the sun. “C’mon, wanna wreck ya.”

“Ooh, how exciting!” Richie giggles as Eddie pulls on his open button-down over top of his t-shirt that reads _THE FUTURE IS STUPID_ and drags him down the long hallway, searching for the room they're sharing with Bill. Eddie feels his phone vibrate at the same moment he hears Richie’s do the same, and he turns to Richie, eyes widening dramatically.

“We forgot to tell them where we’re going.”

“Oh, shit,” Richie laughs, pulling out his phone and scrolling through the several worried texts in their group chat. “I’ll call Bev, hold on.”

Richie does this as Eddie continues wandering aimlessly down the hall, still on the hunt for their room. He realizes that they’ve been going the wrong way about halfway down and he laughs, jogging to catch up with Richie who is assuring Beverly that they’re _fine,_ and _no, Bev, we haven’t been murdered in the street._

Eddie hears her say through the receiver that she demands to speak to him to make sure he’s okay, too, and Eddie giggles when Richie sighs, thrusting the phone over to him. He takes it and quietly tells Richie to find their room. Richie takes off down the hallway in the opposite direction and Eddie presses the phone to his ear.

“Hello, Beverly.”

“Eddie Kaspbrak, you son of a bitch, we were really worried!” Beverly sighs. Eddie tuts, knowing how serious she is.

“We’re okay, Bev, promise promise.” There’s a long pause where Eddie would be certain she’s hung up if it weren’t for the noise of the raucous club she’s probably standing outside of lightly playing in the background. “Bev?”

“Yeah, babe, I’m here,” she chuckles. “S’just that, weirdly, you saying something that Richie’s said the entire time I’ve known him was kind of more solidly telling of your appreciation for him than anything else that’s happened tonight.” Eddie’s cheeks burn and he grumbles nonsensically, shuffling in the hallway. “S’nice, is all.”

“It is?”

“Of course it is. He’s my best friend and it’s nice to see you appreciating him for the lovely person he is.” The _finally_ goes unsaid, but even slightly tipsy, Eddie can pick up on it.

“I’m working on making up for the way I’ve treated him, Bev, I promise. I was a complete shit to him. I was selfish and stupid and I don’t ever want him to think that I don’t absolutely hate being without him again,” he swears quietly, trying to keep Richie who’s running up and down the halls from hearing him.

“Eddie…” she sighs, “I think the best way of you showing him that is _telling_ him that. You’ve been showing it for years without the confirmation of your words. Just let him know. I promise he feels the same way.”

“But that’s fucking scary, Beverly,” Eddie frowns.

“Yeah, it is,” she agrees. “But you’ve faced scarier things before.”

He knows she doesn’t know about what he went through in school, with his mom, with Jared, but it’s still nice that she believes in him like that.

“Hey, hot stuff, I found the room! Come back! I don’t do well without constant entertainment and you took my phone!” Richie calls from a little ways up the hallway, louder than necessary. Eddie shushes him, says that people are sleeping. He smirks. “They won’t be for long with what we’re about to get up to.”

“Fuck off,” Eddie laughs, pressing the phone back to his ear. “I’ve gotta go.”

“Sure, Eds, just glad you’re both alright. Think about what I said, yeah?” The way she says it, like she’s so hopeful that he will, sobers him up almost entirely.

“Yeah, I’ll—I’ll try, Bev. Bye.” He hangs up and walks down to where Richie is sitting on the floor in front of their door, leaning against it.

“Hurry,” Richie whines. “I’m bored.”

“Oh, my God,” Eddie laughs. He feels like there’s very few instances in which he isn’t laughing around Richie. “Get up, get inside, you have the keys.”

“I do?” He slithers down so he’s laying across the floor and digs his hand into his pocket. He pulls out their room keys. “A-ha! I do! My smart little falcon.”

“What?” Eddie sputters, laughing even harder. “I’m not a falcon!”

“Falcons are smart! And so are you!” Richie cheers, jumping up to shove the room key in the door. He opens it up and tumbles inside, grabbing it at the last second so Eddie can come in, too. “After you, my good fellow.”

“Why, thank you,” Eddie says, bowing. Richie looks positively gleeful. Eddie goes to their bed, throwing Richie’s phone on his side and grabbing his toothbrush and face wash from the bag he dropped off before the game. “I’ll be out in a minute, okay? Gotta shower and shit.”

“Aw, but I’ll get bored without you! Can’t I join?” Richie asks, his eyebrows jumping.

“You took a shower, like, three hours ago. You’ll be fine without me, I promise.”

“I’ll miss you the whole time,” Richie swears, and he looks so serious with his index fingers crossed over his heart, that Eddie can’t help but smile.

“I know, sweetheart.” Richie’s smile blooms over his face slowly until he throws himself backwards onto the bed, sighing dramatically with his arms splayed.

“‘M so happy,” he mumbles, giggling. Eddie’s smile only grows.

“Me, too,” he says quietly. Richie sits up, leaning back on his forearms.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Now let me do this so we can get to the good stuff,” he says, raising his supplies. “You should come in and brush your teeth at some point, too.”

“I will.”

“But no joining me in the shower!”

“I won’t,” Richie laughs. “Promise promise.”

“Cool.”

Eddie usually doesn’t take very long in the bathroom. He’s very efficient with his showers, meticulously cleaning every square inch of himself. He’s never stayed in a hotel room this nice before, though, and the water pressure is so wonderful that he finds himself sighing several times.

“Sweetheart, you’re killin’ me with those little noises,” Richie says from inside the bathroom, startling Eddie. “You better not be gettin’ started without me.”

He’s not, but his interest at what Richie would do if he was piques. “So what if I was.”

“Well, I’d have to punish you. Obviously,” Richie says flippantly, as if it’s already ingrained in fact. Eddie shivers underneath the spray. _Interesting,_ he thinks, but something they’d need to have a conversation about before they venture into that territory. He mentally bookmarks that train of thought for later.

Eddie decides ignoring the comment is for the best right now and he shuts the shower off, sticking his head out into the cold with the shower curtain wrapped tightly around his body. “Can you hand me a towel?”

“No,” Richie smiles from where he’s sitting on the counter, kicking his feet and looking at his phone.

“Oh, and why not?” Eddie asks, lips pursed.

“You didn’t ask nicely.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake…” Eddie grumbles. “May I please have a towel, beautiful boyfriend whom I love with my whole heart?”

“Aw, cute!” Richie giggles, throwing him a towel from beside him.

“I was being sarcastic,” Eddie says, catching it and drying out his hair as best he can. He towels off quickly before wrapping it around his waist and stepping out into the cold room. He shivers and frowns.

“The root of all sarcasm is truth, dear,” Richie sings, slipping off the counter and sauntering out of the room. He isn’t sure why Richie joined him in the bathroom when he still followed the rules of not joining him in the shower. Maybe he really did just want company. The thought makes him smile fondly and he changes into the pajama pants Richie left for him on the counter and follows him into the room. He enters to find a bottle of lube and a condom already on the bed with Richie splayed across it, trying hard to look seductive and failing miserably. Eddie knows Richie searched through his bag to find those, knowing Richie almost certainly didn't have the wherewithal to pack his own, having no hope that Eddie would show up. He thinks it's almost impossible to stay away from Richie for too long, and it was only a matter of time before he put away his fears and allowed Richie to be the light at the end of the tunnel. He snorts at Richie's position, and he knows his eyes are soft, which makes Richie pout a little less intensely than he would've otherwise.

“You’re trying _so_ hard,” Eddie laughs.

“I’m trying to _get_ hard!” Richie cries, snapping out of his awkward position and sitting up. Eddie notices that he changed into pajamas, too. He looks comfortable—a safe place to lay. “Let me seduce you!”

“Oh, but you’ve already done that,” Eddie smiles, walking closer to the bed with the towel draped around his neck. He lets the towel drop to the floor in a heap when he climbs up on the bed, plopping himself in Richie’s lap. He wraps his arms around Richie’s neck and toys with the curls behind his head. Richie smiles up at him and rests his hands on Eddie’s lower back.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi,” Eddie responds. They look at each other for a long time, just drinking in the safety they’ve created within their relationship. Eddie remembers Beverly’s words over the phone earlier and he sucks in a deep breath.

“You know how happy I am to be with you, right?” Richie’s smile fades a bit in intensity, but it’s just as soft and fond.

“Yeah, I had an idea,” he says, quirking his eyebrows.

“Well, I am. I have been for a very long time,” Eddie says, and it sounds more like a promise than a statement when it leaves his lips.

Wordlessly, Richie lifts up his pinky. He needs this confirmation, and Eddie is more than willing to give it to him now. He curls his own pinky around Richie's and they stare at each other for a moment before leaning down to bite gently on their thumbs. Their eye contact remains undisturbed and he can tell Richie’s sobered up in the time since Eddie showered. He looks as if he's seconds away from combusting where they sit with pure energy. Their hands drop to their laps but their pinkies remain hooked together, and it's a shock to them both when Eddie is the one who breaks.

With a sigh that's a cross between joyful and impatient, Eddie threads his fingers into Richie’s hair and brings him up so their lips can connect. Richie lets out a little noise of surprise, jolting, as if Eddie truly wanting him is still so unexpected. As he melts underneath Eddie's touch, Eddie vows to convince him otherwise.

Eddie untangles their fingers and slides his palm roughly up Richie's chest underneath his shirt, leaving a hot trail in his wake. His thumb catches over Richie's nipple and Richie jolts slightly, whining high in his throat. Their kiss intensifies when Eddie flicks his thumb over it relentlessly, again and again, and Richie is breathing heavily into their kiss when he pulls away. Richie looks up at him, eyes pleading him to do something. There's already a flush high on his cheeks and his eyes are slightly wet. Eddie pinches his nipple a bit roughly and Richie chokes, all the air getting stuck in his throat.

“Please, Eds…” he whines, eyes drifting shut. “I… I…”

Usually, it's Richie who is in control simply because he's on top. Their sex is fond gazes and gentle kisses against throats and quiet sounds until climax. But Eddie wants more, he wants to have control over Richie’s body because he's found that control is one of the best things in life there is when handled properly. Being able to control his own body, having autonomy when he went to college, it was the best thing that ever happened to him. His mother would be terrified to see him now.

But he isn't thinking about his mother when he slides his right hand up to flick at Richie’s other nipple. He isn't thinking about her when he attaches his lips to Richie's pulse point and sucks hard, with purpose. And he's definitely not thinking about her when the moan he pulls from Richie is so hot—so beautiful and filthy in ways that Eddie has always shied away from because he was told to—that he grinds down into Richie's lap without realizing it.

Richie gasps, overwhelmed by all the sensations, and he tips his head back, hands desperately clutching at Eddie's shirt to try to find some solid ground while his mind swims with lust. And that's when Eddie realizes that they're in the exact same position they were when they started this freshman year, except now the roles are reversed. It feels like a lifetime ago. The idea makes Eddie's mind race and his stomach twist pleasantly. They've been so close for so long that Eddie sometimes forgets where they began.

Eddie grinds down again, and their dicks line up perfectly this time, relieving some of the pressure and building it at the same time. But this isn't how Eddie wants this to end. He and Richie have a lot more trouble they can get up to than just coming in their pajamas.

Eddie finally lets up on Richie’s nipples and Richie sighs gratefully. Eddie tugs Richie’s shirt over his head and discards it mindlessly at the foot of the bed. He pushes Richie down onto his back with his fingers splayed on his chest and pulls his own shirt over his head slowly, arching his back, knowing how much Richie loves a show, and when he looks back down at him, Richie's chest is heaving.

“Holy shit,” Richie breathes, reaching out for Eddie almost druggedly. “You're so fuckin’ beautiful. Like a work of art or some shit. It drives me crazy.”

Eddie blushes and preens under Richie's praises and leans down to kiss him sweetly. “You are, too, baby,” Eddie says quietly when he breaks away. He strokes Richie’s warm cheek. They look at each other for a while, just taking in each other's slightly unraveled states. Their messy hair, their glassy eyes, their bruised lips. Eddie lightly traces his thumb over Richie's mouth. He kisses it chastely, smiling under Eddie's touch.

“I wanna try something,” Eddie says, voice wavering a bit with obvious nerves. “You can stop me at any time, obviously, you know the drill—three taps to my shoulder. But it's something I've wanted to try for a long time and I—”

“Yes,” Richie breathes, eyes a bit wide with excitement. “Whatever it is, yes.”

“Are you sure?” Eddie asks, still unmoving where he's on top of Richie, holding onto his shoulders.

“Mhm, definitely,” Richie nods vigorously. “I trust you.”

Those words go straight to Eddie's heart. After all this time, all the time he spent lying, Richie still trusts him. He isn't going anywhere. Eddie’s response to his own trauma didn't push Richie away—it only ever pulled him closer. “I don't know what I did to deserve you,” Eddie marvels quietly, shaking his head in wonder, “but I'm gonna do my damnedest to keep on doing whatever it is.”

“Should be easy,” Richie smiles, reaching up to tuck a rogue strand of hair behind Eddie's ear, curlier than normal due to his shower. It springs back to where it was before, and Richie just smiles wider, sweeping his whole hand over Eddie's scalp and cupping the back of his neck. “All you ever did was be you.”

Eddie's smile grows wider as he leans down and touches their foreheads together, eyes slipping shut. “I love you so much, Richie.”

“I love you back,” Richie responds, voice thick with emotion. “Can't wait to tell you over and over forever.”

“Forever, eh?” Eddie asks, but he isn't nervous by the idea. In fact, he thinks that there isn't a better person to spend forever with than Richie Tozier. “I like the sound of that.”

 

Richie has been on edge for what feels like hours now. Ever since he and Eddie danced at Pony, he’s been half-hard and willing to do whatever it takes to release that energy he’s got buzzing just beneath his skin. But then Eddie says he wants to try something _different_ and his blood sparks. Eddie said in the hallway that he wanted to be rough, but Richie isn’t exactly sure what that means, and he isn’t wholly comfortable going too rough too fast, especially when he knows Eddie’s never done so with anyone.

Before Eddie, Richie exclusively had casual sex. He supposes it could be classified as rough because what he and his partners did to each other didn’t matter enough to be meaningful. It was a means to an end—it was warm bodies and something to fill the void. From day one, Eddie was never that. He was warm and he filled the empty parts inside of Richie, but he was so much more than that, too. Richie remembers the third time they had sex and Richie was blowing him, Eddie’s hips stuttered involuntarily and choked Richie without realizing it. With anyone else, they might’ve pulled out and waited for him to get his bearings before going back in again, but Eddie hauled him up off his knees as gently as he could and led him over to the bed. Eddie had laid down and pulled Richie to his chest, stroking his throat gently and asking him over and over again if he was okay. He was; Eddie had pulled out almost immediately and the burn in his throat was already starting to fade, but no one had ever treated him like this before. With care. Like he was something precious to look after.

Richie loves that about their sex. The care they have for each other bleeds into every move they make, and Richie isn’t sure he wants to sacrifice that so that they can be adventurous. But as Eddie kisses down his chest, stopping briefly to drag his teeth lightly over Richie’s nipples where he knows he’s sensitive after all the attention he gave them earlier, and stopping at his crotch, dick straining against his pajama pants, he has a feeling they'll be okay no matter what they get up to. Love is always waiting at the foot of the bed.

He’s wearing his favorite pajama pants—loose with a rusted plaid pattern, faded from years of use. Eddie hooks his fingers in the waistband of them and tugs them off, boxers and all. Eddie looks up at him from underneath his eyelashes, mouth hovering over his fully hard dick, and licks a stripe from the base to the head without breaking eye contact to do so. Richie’s jaw drops in a soundless cry, and he feels like he is about one touch away from literally exploding.

“You still good?” Eddie asks. Richie nods violently, and Eddie tuts. “Use your words, baby.”

“Yes,” Richie chokes out. “Just do it. Please, do something. Anything.”

“Anything?” Eddie asks, cocking his eyebrow.

“Within reason, you minx,” Richie breathes. Eddie laughs and the hot air against his dick makes Richie keen, back arching. Eddie appraises him while he lifts up to grab a pillow from beside Richie’s head.

“You’re really desperate for it, aren’t you?” Eddie asks quietly. “I’ve never seen you like this.”

“Likin’ the view?” Richie teases, but the effect is somewhat lost from the choked quality of his voice. Eddie smiles and shakes his head, tapping Richie’s hip so he can lift up. Eddie puts the pillow underneath his lower back, and when Richie settles back down, Eddie smiles at him.

“Good?”

“Best,” Richie says with vigor.

“Promise promise?”

“Promise promise.” Eddie hooks his hands underneath Richie’s knees and pushes them up until his feet are flat on the bed. He smooths his hands over Richie’s shins and then down the tops of his thighs. He pushes against the insides of his knees so that they're splayed and leans in to press kisses against his inner thighs. Richie’s breath gets caught in his chest.

“You know,” Eddie starts conversationally, lips dragging against the sensitive skin, “I’m really fucking proud of you.”

“Yeah?” Richie asks distractedly. He’d nearly forgotten about the game. In the flurry of the bar and drinking and dancing, it feels like it was a different day, when in fact the game only ended four hours ago.

“Yeah.” Eddie sucks a mark into his inner thigh and Richie’s breathing starts to come in faster. Nobody has ever done this with him. This is a first for Richie the same way it’s a first for Eddie. Eddie pops off his thigh with a satisfying noise and appraises his work. He kisses up higher and higher until he’s at the crease between his leg and his ass. “I really am,” he murmurs against Richie’s skin when he presses a chaste kiss there. “You were a good boy. You know what good boys get?”

 _Holy shit._ “What?”

“Rewarded.”

And then Eddie licks the edge of Richie’s rim and his entire body goes taut. He starts rambling nonsensically, mixing in curses with Eddie’s name as Eddie gives tiny, kitten licks against his rim, testing the waters. Words are falling out off of his tongue like they were always waiting there. Praise. “Holy shit. Holy shit. Eddie, you’re eating me out. Holy fucking—Eddie, you’re so fucking beautiful. You look so good like this, fuck, you look like you were takin’ straight outta my fuckin’ dreams. Shit, I’ve dreamt about this. Shit, _shit_ , you have no idea, Eddie. You… You’re… Your fuckin’ _mouth_ is… You can do anything with that mouth and it turns me on.” Eddie laughs against Richie’s skin and it vibrates deeply within him so that Richie is gasping. “Eddie… Eddie, can I have more? Please, baby… I need more…”

Eddie hums consideringly and pulls away. Richie whines at the loss of contact, looking down at Eddie with desperation in his eyes. He’s harder than he ever remembers being in his life and Eddie has barely even touched his dick. He thinks Eddie has hardwired his libido to respond to anything and everything he does.

“You really want it, baby?”

“Mhm,” Richie nods.

“How badly?” he asks, dragging his finger along the crease of his thigh. “Why do you think you deserve it?”

“I love you, fuck, _please_ ,” Richie babbles nonsensically, his voice just on the edge of a whine when Eddie presses the pad of his thumb against Richie’s hole.

“Well, that’s a pretty good reason,” Eddie smiles. He leans back in and licks a broad stripe where Richie has been desperate for it and he lets out a long moan in response.

“Fuck _yes_ ,” he groans as Eddie slips his tongue inside. He pokes it in and out slowly at first, trying to get Richie used to the feeling, but when Richie’s legs begin shaking with restlessness, he starts fucking in and out of him at a relentless pace, grinding his own hips against the bed to try to get some relief to his own aching arousal through his thin pajamas.

“Holy shit, how are you so perfect?” Richie sighs, clutching onto the sheets like a lifeline, trying to breathe evenly so he doesn’t come. He wants to enjoy this moment for as long as possible. Eddie reaches around blindly with the hand that isn’t pressed against the inside of Richie’s knee, keeping his legs splayed apart, and grabs Richie’s fist. He quickly braids and fingers together and Richie squeezes tightly, shuddering and shaking like he never has before. He’s pretty sure he’s going to come untouched and Eddie has barely even so much as looked at his dick since he started this. Richie’s mind is hazy and frantic with the need to get off, but he wants to keep living in this moment for as long as he can, like he did when they danced. He keeps having these brief flashes of fear that Eddie is going to decide he was wrong and bolt. Eddie is always running, but Richie hopes that maybe he can run alongside him now. After all, he did teach him how.

Eddie can feel Richie’s legs shaking where his hand is pressing against his knee and he smooths his hand slowly up and down the inside of his thigh as he keeps up his pace. The touch is so alike everything they’ve done before this moment of newness that Richie feels every ounce of anxiety he was feeling melt away. This is Eddie. Eddie has always wanted this, even if he couldn’t always say so.

Eddie pulls out with a quick kiss to his inner thigh and sits up. Richie lets out a whine, but it cuts off when he sees the wild look in Eddie’s eyes, dark and hungry.

“I wanna fuck you,” he says plainly, wiping off his spit-covered chin with the outside of the wrist that isn’t still holding onto Richie’s hand. “‘S that something you want?”

“Holy fucking shit,” Richie breathes, nodding furiously. “Yes, yes, a thousand percent yes. I didn’t think you—”

“Me neither,” Eddie cuts him off with a shocked shake of his head. He smiles slightly, marveling at the situation. “But honestly, I’ve never wanted something more.”

“Then by all fucking means,” Richie says, gesturing to his own body glistening with sweat. Eddie seems to notice him for the first time when Richie does this, and he rakes his eyes up and down Richie’s body with a hot stare. Richie has the instinct to squirm under Eddie’s intense gaze, but it’s nothing he hasn’t seen before, so he lays pliant while Eddie looks at him.

“Fuck,” Eddie mutters under his breath, shaking his head again. “You, like, drip sex. Every dip and curve of your body, it’s all so fucking hot. How the fuck…”

Richie’s cheeks burn at Eddie’s praise, but it only adds to his arousal. “You say this like you’re noticing for the first time.”

“Oh, I’m definitely not,” Eddie says darkly, locking eyes with Richie once again. “Every time you’re on that field, I’m at least half-hard.”

“You’re shitting me!” Richie gasps. “That’s—that’s so fucking hot, what the fuck?”

“Yeah.” Eddie reaches over and grabs the lube and the condom. He slips off his pajama pants before slicking up his fingers and rubbing them together to warm them up.

“What do you think about?” Eddie flicks his gaze up to Richie’s from where he’s focused on his fingers and Richie is drinking in the soft skin of his thighs, his narrow hips that Richie wants to grab and hold onto for dear life, his hard, flushed cock. Richie has to forcibly drag his gaze away from Eddie’s dick and make eye contact with him. “When I’m on the field, what gets you so hot about it?”

“Well,” Eddie says, reaching down to circle Richie’s hole with his middle finger. Richie’s breath hitches loudly and he flinches slightly at the cool contact, not wholly used to someone else’s fingers being where only his own have been. Eddie pauses, gauging Richie’s comfortability. He locks eyes with Richie and taps his own shoulder three times as a reminder. Richie smiles and nods once. “You in those shorts drives me a bit fucking wild,” he admits as he begins moving his finger again, just teasing. Richie knows the first digit will go in easily from how Eddie opened him up with his mouth first, but Eddie is trying to get him comfortable before he enters him completely. “And that mouth on you…” Eddie sighs, finally pressing his finger inside. Richie lets out a strangled cry, back arching. “Always mouthing off about something.”

“They need to be put in their place,” Richie says breathlessly. He tries to shrug, but Eddie pulls in and out quickly then, and the delicious slide that barely burns makes it look like more of a twitch.

“Do they, now?” Eddie asks lightly, and Richie would think he isn’t affected at all if it weren’t for the slight shaking of his hand where he’s pressed inside Richie, his fist curled tightly in the duvet pushed to the foot of the bed, and the hardness of his cock that hasn’t flagged even without any attention from simply kneeling between Richie’s splayed legs. “I bet you’d think that. You’re so cocky—always leaning up against the goalpost with such ease like you’ve never lost a game.”

“Barely ever have,” Richie sighs when Eddie crooks his finger upward. “Fuck.”

“Mm, think you’ve got any room up on that high horse?” Eddie asks, pulling his finger out and quickly replacing it with two. Richie gasps, forgetting whatever retort he had ready. He’s squirming and kicking his feet slightly, overwhelmed by the feeling of Eddie touching him there. Richie’s never been able to hit his own prostate despite his long fingers—the reach has never been quite right. But with Eddie so close to it, he knows it’s only a matter of time before he comes too soon.

“Eddie, please, baby. I’m close, you gotta hurry up,” Richie whines, fingers flexing and releasing in the sheets. He slaps his hand down onto the bed when Eddie pulls out and uses three fingers to scissor him open. He makes contact with Eddie’s thigh when he does it again and he digs his fingers into the taut muscle. “Please, Eddie. I don’t wanna come like this.” He looks up at him through bleary eyes, glasses crooked on his face and smudged from where he’s been adjusting them the entire time to be able to see Eddie better. They’re slipping down the bridge of his nose currently, but Richie is too distracted to notice.

“Okay, baby. We’re almost there, alright? Just a little bit longer,” Eddie soothes, holding onto his hip with a steady grip that isn’t bruising but very much a comforting weight. “Breathe, okay? In and out, like you do with me.”

Richie does, trying to keep his breaths even, but all his efforts go out the window when Eddie brushes against the bundle of nerves inside him that he’s never been able to find himself. _“Fuck!”_ Richie yells, sobbing once due to the overwhelming sensation of the stimulation. Eddie stops and he looks like he’s about to pull away when Richie grabs for his wrist. “Again, again, do it again.” Eddie goes searching for it again and finds it relatively quickly. Richie cries out, back bowing. His cock jumps when Eddie does it again, and then for a third time, and Richie has tears streaming down his face.

“Richie…” Eddie says, torn between worry and arousal. “Promise promise?”

“Pr—fuck! Promise promise,” he pants. He locks eyes with Eddie and nods. “I want you.”

Eddie seems to get the message and he pulls out, wiping his fingers on the sheets where they drape over the edge of the bed. He quickly tears the condom wrapper with his teeth and makes shaky work of putting it on, looking too over-excited to do so efficiently. He pours another bit of lube in his palm and rubs it over the condom. He shudders hard at the sensation, not having touched his own cock the entire time, and takes his hand away before he can get too worked up. He looks back to Richie, suddenly aborted in his movements.

“How do you—how do you wanna do this?” he asks, unsure of where he should even put his hands.

“Wanna look at you,” Richie rushes out quickly, grabbing for Eddie to come closer. “Wanna see you.”

“Okay,” Eddie says quietly, bowing over Richie’s body and lining his dick up. “It’s gonna be a bit weird at first, okay? Talk if it makes you feel better. It makes me feel better to know how you’re feeling, so… Okay… I’m gonna…” The edge of his dick catches against Richie’s rim and Richie is shaking before it’s even inside from the mere idea of it. Eddie pushes in then, slowly and carefully, stopping every few seconds to allow Richie time to adjust. For once, Richie is silent. His eyes are closed and his brows are pinched and his mouth is open slightly. Every inch deeper Eddie goes, Richie punches out another little noise. And then, after a painstakingly long time, Eddie is fully seated within Richie. Richie opens his eyes and finds Eddie staring down at him, searching his face for any discomfort.

“This is…” Richie tries, but he has no words.

“I know,” Eddie whispers thickly. “Me, too.”

“You can move, I think,” Richie says.

“You think?”

“Please move. I wanna feel you.” Eddie lets out an unsteady breath and he nods, pulling out until he’s almost all the way out, before pushing back in much quicker than before. Richie’s moan is long and drawn out, and the burn is starting not to hurt as much as it feels absolutely incredible.

“Faster, faster, faster,” Richie chants desperately, grabbing at Eddie’s ass and kneading it, trying to coax him deeper. Eddie acquiesces. He sets up a steady rhythm that gets Richie comfortable, but before he can relax at all, the pace picks up and gets a bit rougher. Eddie shifts from where he had his hands on the bed beside Richie’s head to instead grab at Richie’s hips. Richie cries out at the change of angle.

“I’m yours, Rich,” Eddie grits out, slamming into him with a bruising force. “Yours.”

“Mine,” Richie repeats a bit more higher-pitched than he’s ever heard himself speak. “Mine. Mine. Mine.”

Richie drags his hands up from where they’re grabbing onto Eddie’s ass, over the planes of his jumping clenched stomach and over his chest, falling in love with his body all over again now that he knows he can keep it. He grabs Eddie’s shoulder when he reaches it and tugs at it so that Eddie will lean closer. When Eddie is just a breath away, Richie runs one of his hands through Eddie’s hair and holds on tight while the other wraps around the back of his neck.

“Yours,” Richie whispers as he digs his heels into the small of Eddie’s back, spurring him on. Eddie whines, dropping his head down onto Richie’s shoulder as he keeps rocking into him, the rhythm becoming more and more erratic the closer he gets to the edge. “C’mon, sunshine. Come for me.”

Eddie moans against Richie’s skin, but shakes his head, looking up at Richie determinedly. “You first.” And when he wraps his hand around Richie’s cock, it only takes four pumps before he comes. After being so turned on for so long, Richie’s orgasm is white-hot with intensity and wracks through his body with a force he hasn’t ever felt before. Eddie continues to work him through it while still slamming into him, chasing his own release which comes when Richie becomes too overstimulated and clenches tightly around him. Eddie lets out a high whine in his throat, whispering, “ _Richie_ ,” with such reverence that Richie feels the tears that pooled in his eyes from his orgasm fall down the sides of his face and gather at the arms of his glasses. He lets go of Richie’s cock when Richie starts pawing at his wrist, too overstimulated to keep going, and collapses ungracefully onto Richie.

They’re both breathing heavily, the only noise in the otherwise silent room as they both come down from their highs. Eddie is usually useless after sex, body heavy with exhaustion and endorphins, so Richie knows he’s going to have to be the first one to move. He runs his hand up and down Eddie’s back and slowly turns his head to press a kiss into his hair. Eddie’s fingers twitch before he manages to drag them up to curl around Richie’s shoulders and hold on. He allows Eddie a few more moments before gently reminding him that they’re going to get stuck together with Richie’s cum if they don’t move soon. Eddie sighs as he pulls out slowly, removing the condom and tying it off. He flops his head around, looking for a garbage can, and spots one underneath the table between the two beds. He tosses it over and makes a pleased noise when he sees it go in, eyes drifting shut afterwards.

Richie starts to get up to clean himself off, but Eddie whines in discontent, pulling him closer by the arm.

“Darlin’, I’ve gotta wash this shit off,” Richie laughs drowsily.

“Mmm, my job,” he says. “You were so good. Gotta r’ward you.”

“You have rewarded me plenty, sweet thing,” Richie promises, leaning down to kiss Eddie’s forehead before getting off the bed and padding over to the bathroom. He washes himself off with a cloth, but before he leaves, he catches sight of himself in the mirror. His hair is absolutely wild from both of them dragging their fingers through it, his cheeks are flushed brighter than he’s seen them in a long time, the muscles in his shoulders—usually tense—are completely relaxed, and his eyes are half-lidded and bright with contentment. He smiles at his reflection, at the series of bruises Eddie has left on his neck and shoulders and at his crooked glasses, usually a low point in his appearance to him but only adds to the sloppy image created in front of him, and thinks he hasn’t ever liked the way he looks this much.

“Rich?” Eddie calls quietly from the door frame. Richie turns to him and sees him leaning against it casually, having pulled Richie’s boxers on because they were probably closest to avoid the cold. Richie always loves the way Eddie looks, but him wearing his clothes and looking sleepy and sated has got to be his favorite.

“C’mere,” Richie says, beckoning him over. Eddie does and immediately attaches himself to Richie’s side.

“What’s up?” Eddie asks, rubbing at his eyes sleepily.

“Look at us,” Richie urges, nodding at the mirror in front of them. Eddie does, and he must like what he sees, because his smile becomes luminous as he wraps his arm around Richie's waist.

“We look good together,” Eddie says, voice much quieter than it usually is.

“Yeah,” Richie says, dragging his hand up and down Eddie’s back before coming to rest on his shoulder. He catches Eddie’s eyes in the mirror and matches his smile. “We always did.”

 

When Eddie wakes up on Saturday morning, the hotel room is empty and he’s so cold he’s practically shaking.

“Fuck,” he moans, rolling away from where he’s spooning Richie to close the window they left open last night to air out the room. “Did we not text Bill to close the window when he got in? Jesus…” he mutters. He shuts the window as quietly as possible before rooting through his bag to pull on Richie’s Stanford sweatshirt that he stole. He trudges back to bed and burrows underneath the blankets and attaches himself to Richie’s back, trying to suck up all his heat. He slips his toes between Richie’s calves, and it’s this that makes Richie jolt awake—not the noise or Eddie getting in and out of bed, but Eddie’s cold toes.

“Ack!” he squeaks, curling his legs closer to his chest before sighing when he feels Eddie drag his cold nose up the back of Richie’s neck.

“Sorry, baby,” he whispers, dropping a kiss at the knot at the base of his neck. He drops his head back down onto the pillow and curls around Richie even tighter. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Bullshit,” Richie says lazily, and he can almost hear the slow smirk on his boyfriend’s face when he speaks. “Maybe you’re the leech after all.”

“Thought you wouldn’t remember too much from last night,” Eddie admits quietly, frowning. “We were both pretty wasted.”

“I was entirely sober by the time we hit the bed, if that’s what you’re worried about, Eds,” Richie says, dragging his palm across the arm hooked tightly around his stomach. “Sorry if you were under the impression that I wasn’t.”

“I wasn’t under that impression, Rich,” Eddie says quickly, grabbing the material of the thin t-shirt Richie threw on in his fist tightly. “I just… You know me, I worry.”

“I know, Eds,” Richie responds, sticky-sweet, honey dripping from his tone. “Plus, even if I couldn’t remember it, my ass certainly does.”

“And he’s back,” Eddie snorts, rolling his eyes. “What’d it take, two minutes after waking up to make a terrible joke? New record.”

“I think the record will forever be owned by the time I told you a joke in my sleep,” Richie laughs. “What was it again?”

“I don’t remember.” He does. It was the anti-joke Richie is so fond of about a tree, but he doesn’t want to give Richie the satisfaction.

“I think you do,” Richie taunts, poking at the back of Eddie’s hand. “I bet it was the one about the tree.”

“It wasn’t.”

“How would you know? I thought you didn’t remember.” Shit.

“Whatever…” Eddie grumbles.

“Ask me if I’m a tree.”

“No.”

“You’re ruining the punchline, babe! C’mon, ask me if I’m a tree.” Eddie sighs harshly, ruffling Richie’s curls as he does.

“Are you a tree?” There’s a long pause, as there always is, to build anticipation, and Eddie rolls his eyes before Richie can even answer.

“No.”

“Jesus christ,” Eddie mumbles.

“Hey!” Richie says excitedly, wiggling in Eddie’s grasp. “We’re true switches now! Sexy switches _and_ spoon switches!”

“Get off me immediately or I will tell campus security who spray-painted the penis on the South Wall,” Eddie groans.

“How could I get off of you? You’re still holding onto me,” Richie points out, voice satisfied and teasing. “Checkmate.”

“I hate you so fucking much,” Eddie grumbles, rolling onto his back and away from Richie.

“No, you don’t,” Richie smiles, flipping around to nuzzle his face into Eddie’s shoulder, throwing an arm and a leg over his body, effectively trapping him.

“Fuck off,” Eddie sighs, shoving at his heavy body half-heartedly.

“Are you sure you want it this early, Eds?” Richie asks, eyes still closed as he grinds onto Eddie’s hip. “If you insist, daddy.”

“I thought I told you to never use that word in front of me,” Eddie groans disgustedly. “Now you’re definitely not getting any.”

“I can live with that,” Richie hums, thumbing across Eddie’s collarbone through his sweatshirt. Eddie grabs his phone from the side table and clicks to see several notifications from their group chat.

 **Denny Bro:** I’m in the dining room because i was sexiled by the new lovebirds and i’m mad which one of u is paying for my six commissary bagels as penance  
**Biv Morsh:** the bagels are free dude. that’s what’s implied in the word commissary. you go to stanford  
**Denny Bro:** Fuck off u got laid last night and i had 2 deal w/ dumb and dumber  
**Haystack:** I, for one, am proud and impressed. We all saw them at Pony last night. They needed this. Leave Britney alone!  
**Biv Morsh:** ben that meme is from like 2007 get some new material  
**Stan the Man:** Man, Bev is mean after sex.  
**Stan the Man:** Ugh, I can’t believe I know that now. I’m coming to the dining room to drown my sorrows in shitty bagels with Bill.  
**Denny Bro:** Why are u mad stan u got laid last night 2  
**Biv Morsh:** maybe stan is also mean after sex. mike, confirm?  
**Magic Mike:** I’m being forced to say no comment by Stan. And by forced, I mean he told me he’d never let me have a dog if I say anything else.  
**Haystack:** Jeez, brutal.  
**Biv Morsh:** so, confirmed  
**Stan the Man:** No bagels for Beverly.  
**Biv Morsh:** fuck you i’m already in the elevator i’m gonna beat you!!!! bill schmear it!!!!  
**Edward Squidward:** I wonder how this turned out  
**Edward Squidward:** Also I can’t believe Richie changed our names in the chat AGAIN  
**Biv Morsh:** he literally got biv morsh from your contacts list eds you’re not fooling anyone. now get ur asses down here we saved u both a bagel. only one tho. you don’t deserve more than one after what you put bill through last night. HASNT HE SUFFERED ENOUGH  
**Edward Squidward:** How the fuck has Bill suffered????  
**Denny Bro:** :(  
**Biv Morsh:** see!!!!!!!! u monster!!!!!!

“C’mon, babe, we gotta go apologize to Bill.”

“What? Did we do something stupid last night?” Richie asks, rubbing at his eyes and slowly sitting up.

“Yeah—we fucked. I guess the stench wasn’t abated by the window being open all night.” Richie sniffs exaggeratedly.

“Smells fine to me!” Richie smiles.

“Yeah, now it does. It’s been hours. But I guess it was still pretty rank when Bill got in. Check your messages.” Richie reaches over for his phone and Eddie watches him smile through the messages, tapping out a quick reply before locking it and getting up to change. He stretches his arms up in the air and Eddie is distracted from checking what Richie said by the long lines of his body. Richie looks back at him and sees that he’s being watched. All he does is wink before crouching down to pick out his clothes. Eddie smiles and shakes his head, checking Richie’s message.

 **Dicky T:** dwama qween  
**Biv Morsh:** i thought we banned you from using baby talk. i’m eating your bagel as punishment  
**Edward Squidward:** If you do that, he will never stop and you know it. I can’t let you have that on your conscience  
**Edward Squidward:** Also sorry Bill this is why our room always smells like disinfectant  
**Denny Bro:** IT IS?!?!?!?! Jesus i thought it was just bcuz ur clean. I’ve been fooled. Hoodwinked. Bamboozled  
**Edward Squidward:** I am clean. If I weren’t clean, our room would smell like a fucking sewer  
**Denny Bro:** How much sex have u guys been having?!? My god

Eddie smiles and locks his phone, despite the fact that he can hear it buzzing with incoming messages.

After breakfast (in which Beverly took Eddie’s advice and let Richie have his bagel—thank God), they go up to Stanley, Mike, Ben and Beverly’s room. Richie had complained because wants to use their room, but Bill put a stop to that, saying it probably still smells like sex. Richie accused Beverly’s room of smelling, too, but Beverly just smiled and told him she was smart enough to bring Febreeze.

“You knew you were gonna get laid even more than we did?” Richie cries. “And how did this shit even work?! You all shared a room!”

“Stanley and Mike got the first shift, just hanging out with Ben,” Beverly explains.

“Wait, Benny, did _you_  get laid last night, too?!” Richie gasps, grinning. “We’re all so powerful.”

“Nah, but I get enough tail at school,” Ben winks. Everyone wolf-whistles loudly.

“Anyway, yeah, it took me longer to pull because I couldn’t tell which girls were straight at a bachelorette party or actually gay,” Beverly snorts.

“God, being a lesbian sounds so complicated,” Richie winces in sympathy.

“It’s fine. The girl I got was absolutely worth the wait,” Beverly shrugs.

They make Beverly explain the girl she had her escapade with over a game of Bullshit. However, Richie grows tired of losing and of trying to convince Beverly to text her first, and suggests they play his favorite game: Mao.

“No fucking way,” Eddie cringes.

“Aw, you’re only saying that because your competitive ass loves games that turn people against each other,” Richie coos, pinching Eddie’s cheek. Eddie bats him away sharply, glaring at him.

“I’m not competitive.”

“Prove it,” Richie smirks.

They end up playing Mao, a game with an over complicated rule system that penalizes you for talking out of turn, and Eddie is, as everyone knew he’d be, ruthless. But as he's eviscerating the group with complicated, outrageous rules every time he wins, Richie is staring at him with open-faced affection plain as day in his expression. Eddie keeps glancing over at him in his peripheral and even though he'll get penalized for it, he has to say something.

“Richie, quit it,” he says quietly through a smile. “You’re so fucking embarrassing.”

He gets the penalty for talking, but he's pretty sure it's worth it from the warmth in Richie's expression.

 

Richie has such a good day on Saturday that he nearly forgets what he's in Seattle for in the first place.

That is, until Bill shakes him (and by proximity, Eddie) awake on Sunday morning demanding he get up right that very second or else they'd be late to set up for the game.

Richie groans and shakes himself awake, reaching over to grab his glasses from the nightstand. “Alright, alright, I’m up.”

He dresses quickly while Eddie attempts to fall back asleep and wait for the other four to call him to meet them in the lobby. Richie comes over to Eddie's side of the bed once he's dressed in his uniform and his contacts are in and crouches beside it, brushing the hair off of Eddie's forehead with overwhelming tenderness. Eddie blinks his eyes open and smiles at him.

“Gotta blast, babe,” Richie whispers with a small, hopeful smile. “Kiss for good luck?”

“Mmm.” Eddie leans over and kisses Richie chastely. “Good luck, Rich. Look for me in the stands.”

“Always do,” Richie says, and his grin is blindingly beautiful to Eddie. They’re almost out of the room when Eddie calls out to them. They both turn in the doorway and Eddie smiles at them.

“I’m gonna be proud of you both no matter what the score is. ‘Kay?” Bill’s smile is small and warm when he nods, and Richie knows he melts when his shoulder hits the doorframe, but he couldn’t keep the goofy, lovestruck grin off his face if he tried.

“You got it, dude,” he smiles, shooting Eddie a thumbs up. Eddie chuckles and gives him one back. Bill and Richie both leave the room with a spring in their step, and Richie feels lighter than he has in years.

Richie is not entirely sure if they’re going to win or not. Usually, he can get a feel for how a game is going to go by the end of the first quarter, but this game is an anomaly.

It’s so close that they’ve had to go into overtime twiceover. The score is 0-0 and the crowd is stomping their feet madly. The sound of shoes against tin echoes throughout the stadium. Richie’s shoulders are squared, and he is prepared for anything. His coach briefed them on the Indiana Hoosiers before the game—they play rough and they play to win. Someone made a rough play with Alex in the second half, sending him barrelling into the ground and Richie could hear the groan as he hit the earth halfway across the field. They’d gotten a penalty kick for that, but their goalie is an incredible tour de force that Richie finds himself unconsciously admiring. He’s tenacious and always ready in a way that Richie never has been able to be. He starts to mirror the man’s constant vigilance and it benefits their team greatly. He blocked all seven goals that have came his way before overtime was called, and he knows he should be exhausted. He can see in the slump of Bill’s shoulders as he watches Richie across the field that he absolutely is. But in truth, Richie has never felt more energized.

In the end, the fate of their game is taken out of Richie’s hands. In the eventuality of overtime, there is a penalty shootout. Richie _loves_ overtime because the audience’s attention is entirely on him. Usually, Richie adores the pressure, but in the final game of their season and faced with five players lined up in a row waiting for the whistle, Richie is honestly terrified. He briefly scans the audience, trying to find Eddie for a bit of strength, but he and all their friends are drowned in a sea of red. He looks back to the Indiana players and shakes his shoulders out. He catches Bill’s eye behind the first player and he mouths _you got it, dude_ and gives Richie a thumbs up. Richie smiles brightly at him and nods swiftly before returning his attention back to the man. The players they chose were smart; Richie has seen them all dominating the field the whole game.

But he knows this is all on his shoulders. The whole crowd, everyone watching this game of TV and his whole team are counting on him. He has to deliver.

And deliver he does. He blocks all five penalty kicks that come his way, and he honestly isn’t sure how he made it through the entire process without passing out—he’s 95% certain he blacked out and was working on instinct alone—but he makes it through and now it’s their team’s turn. At the college level, overtime means sudden death, and Richie watches as all five of his teams’ kicks are blocked as well. They reset and Richie can feel him hands shaking harder than he ever remembers before. He can think of nothing else but the ball and his own hands.

And then unbiddenly, he thinks of Eddie’s hands, strong and certain in all movements on the field, never missing a beat despite the intense anxiety that plagues him. He gathers up all his strength and stares at his own hands before the whistle gets blown. He knows Eddie said he will be proud no matter what, but he wants to be proud of himself, too. He wants to do something that he will remember forever. He wants the world to be unable to forget him. And just like that, his hands still.

The whistle blows.

Five kicks. All blocked.

The crowd is deafening and Richie smiles. It isn’t cocky or even self-assured—it’s _proud._ Richie is proud of himself. More proud than he ever has been before.

On the third kick, Alex’s, the ball sails over the goalie’s hands. The swish of the net is so loud from where Richie is standing.

The whistle blows.

The game is called. Stanford wins.

Richie stands in shock as his team gathers around Alex, shoving him rowdily from side to side. The crowd’s screams fade away. Richie is left standing like a fucking moron just staring at his team. They won. They won the College Cup Finals.

His teammates don’t notice that he hasn’t joined them, too wrapped up in their own elation to pay attention to much else, but really, for the first time in his life, Richie wants to be alone. He wants to soak in the adoration coming from the stands and the joyful screams of his teammates from a distance. Observation is not something Richie does often, but right now, he feels rooted to the ground, standing and watching his teammate’s faces, listening to the chanting in the stands. _Cardinals! Cardinals!_ Richie feels himself smile slowly as he comes back to himself. They did it. He did it.

They won.

As he looks to the stands, he finally manages to spot Eddie in the mix of red and white. He’s on Beverly’s shoulders, sticking up out of the sea of people, and his smile is miles wide, hair windblown and cheeks flushed with excitement. He looks so happy—so proud. Richie made Eddie proud. Richie made himself proud.

He doesn’t think life can get any better than this. He doesn’t want it to.

Even when they make it back to their hotel room after saying goodbye to the graduating seniors, Richie Tozier is on top of the fucking world.

He didn’t think before this afternoon that it was possible to be so proud of someone to be this proud of him, but after Eddie watched Richie on that field, watched he and Bill _win,_ he feels more pride for them than he’s ever felt before and is being _vocal_ about it. He would’ve been proud either way Richie knows, but this match was so damn close. That’s what everyone said all the way back to the hotel (and Mike gushed to the person who picked up the phone at the pizza place they’re ordering from) and that’s what he’s telling Richie despite the fact that they were left alone when all but Ben went to go get pizza. Ben said he wanted to rest in his room for a little while; he told them he had a headache from all the yelling at the game, but assured them that they’d be back soon and were _not_ under _any_ circumstances allowed to fuck while he was gone. Richie said no promises. Eddie said they won’t.

And here they are, on the floor of the hotel room, rolling on the matted, itchy carpet, kissing sweetly until Eddie breaks away to talk about an aspect of the game that he loved. Richie loves it, loves him, but would much rather make out for a while than talk. For once in his life, he’s actually found something he’d rather do than talk and Eddie is _not_ indulging him.

“And another thing!” Eddie squeals, breaking away excitedly, still clinging to the material of Richie’s shirt in what is definitely not desperation and is absolutely excitement. Richie groans, but his eyes are bright when he wrenches them open. “We haven’t even talked about the penalty kicks! Were you nervous?”

“Nervous is definitely a word for it,” Richie chuckles, ducking down to kiss Eddie again, but Eddie continues rambling.

“Because you didn’t look nervous at all! You seemed totally, like, zen out there or something. Like you had already seen the fate of the game,” Eddie gushes, starry-eyed.

“I had definitely not seen the fate of the game in some _That’s So Raven_ -esque twist. I wish I had, jesus. Maybe then I wouldn’t have been so terrified,” he says, and Eddie pulls back to look at him properly, thumb sweeping at the thin skin underneath his eye.

“You were really that scared?” Eddie asks quietly.

“Of course I was, did you _see_ that trophy? Had to get my paws on that bad boy,” Richie winks, but Eddie’s expression of concern doesn’t change. Richie sighs, head tipping to the floor. “Yeah, I was. Everyone was counting on me, you know? It was all up to me. I can’t imagine how Indiana’s goalie must be feeling…”

“I saw you went up to him after the game—what’d you say?” Eddie asks.

“I congratulated him, told him he and his team did an amazing job and we couldn’t have asked for more amazing opponents,” Richie shrugs. Eddie’s smile is small but luminous.

“You’re so good,” he says, and Richie remembers how often he’s told him that before. He still doesn’t _feel_ good, can’t see himself as that, but maybe he can accept that in Eddie’s eyes, he is.

“You are, too, darling,” Richie says quietly, tipping their foreheads together. “Best cheerleader I could’ve ever asked for.”

Eddie giggles. “Did you know I was a cheerleader my senior year of high school for the football team?”

“No!” Richie gasps. “I can’t believe there’s no pictures! I’ve scoured your Facebook for photos of you in high school, you rapscallion.”

“I remade when I went to college, so all my old tagged photos are on the deactivated account,” Eddie laughs. “Didn’t accept anyone from my old school. They were all just… fucking awful.”

“Yeah?” Richie frowns.

“Mm. There was this one guy…” Eddie sighs like he’s trying to gather up the courage to tell a story that is dust-covered to the naked eye, but he spends so much of his time picking up and smoothing over until the edges aren’t so rough. “A football player. I guess I caught his eye or something due to being one of only two male cheerleaders on the team. He wasn’t mean to me or anything… He was, uh… He was lovely to me, actually. For a while. Always invited me out with the team, specifically sought me out and stuff. He ended up needing to be tutored in Algebra to be able to stay on the team, and he begged me for help. He… I couldn’t say no to him. I was okay at Algebra, better than most other maths, but there was some weird voice inside me telling me to stay away from that I couldn’t listen to. It was probably self-preservation. I listen to that voice a lot more now.

“Anyway, long story short, he used me as an experiment.” He’s silent for a long time, but Richie’s voice sounds like a croak when it comes out of his throat.

“And he wasn’t an experiment for you.” It isn’t a question.

“No. He wasn’t. He thought he might’ve been queer, but after a few heated makeout sessions in my room while my mother wasn’t home, I guess he got… bored? Realized he liked girls after all? Regardless, a week after school let out, I saw him making out with another cheerleader named Missy outside of the movie theatre in our town. I guess he had a type.” It comes out bitter, and Richie loves him so viciously. He hates this guy for toying with Eddie’s heart like this.

“And that’s why you stay away from straight men,” Richie finishes, remembering Eddie’s statement from a several weeks ago.

“Yeah. At least… romantically or whatever. I won’t let myself even entertain the thought of another guy until I know for a fact he’s queer in some way.” Richie frowns, but nods.

“That makes sense.”

“That’s why I… Uh, well… When I came into the locker room that first day? I had found out a couple of days prior that you’re bi, and that you’d been working your way through the men on campus.”

“Yeah,” Richie chuckles. “Before you, I… I thought the best part about sex was the leaving afterwards.”

“Really?” Eddie frowns.

“Yeah. I’d never really been attached to anyone before you. You were the first person I ever got stuck on.”

“Even in high school?” Eddie asks, but the smile on his face is undeniable.

“Yeah. I dated casually there, too, but never… never anything _real.”_ The word echoes inarguably throughout the small room and both their cheeks heat up.

“How long has this been _real_ for you?” Eddie asks breathlessly.

“October 28th. Halloween weekend. It was cold for the fall here and your nose was bright red,” Richie says, and Eddie’s smile is so beautiful, Richie has to continue a bit breathlessly. “I came up to you, complimented your costume, and you danced with me all night. I was nervous, making dumb cracks about anything and everyone, and I guess one of them landed the wrong way, because you stormed away from me at some point. I followed you, but you reamed into me, telling me that I was insufferable. I told you that I knew that already. Or, in all honesty, I probably said ‘I know you are, but what am I?’”

Eddie laughs quietly. “You definitely did.”

“In any case,” Richie stresses, cupping Eddie’s cheek gently. “I wanted you just as much that night as I do right now. If anything, it’s only grown.”

Eddie is quiet for a while, mouth opening and closing as if he can’t find the right words, and then he launches himself at Richie, tipping him onto his back and straddling his lap. This kiss is heated and intense and Richie finds himself gasping for breath after only a few seconds, but he has no intention of letting go of Eddie any time soon. His grasp on Eddie’s hips turns bruising when Eddie grinds down in the space between them after a while, lips attached to Richie’s neck as he marks him.

“Fuck,” Richie breathes, head tipping back onto the floor. Eddie takes this as a sign for more and he continues sucking bruises into the column of Richie’s throat. After three love bites, every one of Richie’s exhales are coming out like they’re being punched out of him in high, breathy moans. Eddie’s hands are wandering over his torso underneath his shirt and his hips are a slow, continuous, torturous grind, like they have all the time in the world. They don’t.

“Eddie,” Richie whines, grabbing at his shirt and pulling at it, not fully removing it, but making it clear that he wants to. “C’mon, please. They’re gonna be back any minute.”

“How fast do you think I can get you off?” Eddie hums, leaning back and resting his back on the tops of Richie’s thighs as he slowly removes his shirt.

“Not soon enough if you’re gonna keep fucking teasing me like that,” Richie grumbles. Eddie laughs sweetly and leans down to ruck Richie’s shirt off before kissing him. It’s like honey, this kiss, dripping with sweetness and languid in a way that, after all this time, Richie thinks is programmed to get him off. Eddie reaches down to pop the button of Richie’s jeans and he’s dragging the zipper down over the bulge in Richie’s pants when the door opens unexpectedly.

“Aw, fuck!” Ben whines, shielding his eyes. Richie and Eddie scramble off of each other, Eddie grabbing for a shirt and throwing it over his head. It happens to be Richie’s, but he’s too distracted by the fact that Richie sits unmoving, chest still heaving, glaring at Ben.

“Why didn’t you knock?” he growls. Eddie snorts behind him, probably at his intense tone of voice.

“I did! You bonobos were too busy getting your rocks off to notice!” Ben yells accusingly. “Jesus, I liked it better when you guys hated each other.”

“Me, too,” Eddie says at the same time Richie’s frown morphs into a dreamy smile and says, “he’s always loved me.”

“Liar!” Eddie gasps, pointing at him.

“Please,” Richie says easily. “It’s not nice to lie to your friends, Eddie Spaghetti.”

“I’m not lying! I _never_ loved you! Saying something in your sleep doesn’t count!”

Richie knocks Eddie down onto the floor, kissing his face chastely and sweetly over and over. “Aw, it’s so cute that you think you didn’t say it at every house party we’d inevitably fuck at.”

“Drunk doesn’t count either,” Eddie giggles, just as Ben starts whining.

“That’s _Stan and Mike’s_ house! I sleep on that couch all the time, you animals!”

His complaints go ignored and entirely unheard. “Your memory is broken!” Eddie squeals as Richie pokes him in the sides.

“But not my _stamina,”_ he says with an exaggerated wink.

Eddie groans. “I can’t believe I love you.”

Richie points at him excitedly, bouncing up and down on Eddie’s thighs. “You said it! You love me!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Eddie sniffs, nose pointed to the air.

“Um, I heard it, too,” Ben says, and Eddie blushes, forgetting that Ben was even still in the room. His face turns a delightful shade of pink and he pushes Richie off of himself and runs into the bathroom, locking the door.

“Meet you in there in a second, sugar! Get the shower all nice and steamy for me, you know how I like it,” Richie grins.

“I’m not in here for shower sex!” Eddie shrieks. “That’s nasty!”

“It wasn’t nasty a couple months ago after the game against UC Davis…” Richie sings.

“Shut _up!”_ Richie laughs and turns to Ben. He’s sure he looks absolutely debauched with bruises blooming on his neck and his pants half-undone, but Richie has never been ashamed of how he looks, and he’s _especially_ never been ashamed of how Eddie makes him feel, so he makes no moves to fix up his appearance. He finds Ben smiling gently down at him.

“You guys really love each other, huh?” Ben says wondrously.

“Yeah,” Richie shrugs with a smile that’s just as shocked as Ben’s. “We really, really do.”

 

A few minutes later, after Eddie hears the door open and shut again, Richie pads over to the bathroom door and knocks a few times.

“Hey, sweets, can I come in?”

“No,” Eddie huffs from inside the shower, still stewing. It isn’t that he’s angry at Richie—he’s uncomfortable with anyone but Richie seeing a genuine side of him, and he knows that the compromising position they were found in and Richie’s insistence of Eddie’s (very much obviously there) love for him was damning proof of a truth he’s done his best over the course of the last two years to hide. He’s trying, he’s very much trying and he isn’t giving up on his quest to expose the truth, but lying has become second nature for him. He feels like he learned how to lie before he even learned how to speak—like lying is really his first language. He’s always been comfortable lying to anyone and everyone—his family, his friends, his romantic interests. But Richie shook his life up in more ways than just this, and Eddie finds himself now slightly uncomfortable with the thought of lying to those close to him. It still flows out of him easily, like water to a drain—old habits die very, very hard, Eddie is learning.

But new habits are being made. This is proved as Eddie quietly slips out of the shower and unlocks to door. Before Richie can even open it though, he’s back in the tub with the curtain closed, and he can hear Richie laugh before he walks up to it and pulls it back just enough to peek inside. He makes eye contact with Eddie, smiling gently, and Eddie wonders if he ever really hated Richie at all, even before he found out about his sexuality. He wonders if he broke his own rule and fell in love before they even touched.

“Hey, darlin’,” Richie says quietly. Eddie is thankful for this, because the tile of the bathroom makes their voices considerably louder. “You still embarrassed?”

“I wasn’t _embarrassed,”_ Eddie huffs, crossing his arms.

“Okay,” Richie says, giving into Eddie’s lies easily as he always does. Eddie is more certain now than he ever has been before that he doesn’t deserve Richie. He wants Richie to be with someone who can proudly tell their friends how much they love him and not have to admit it quietly and shamefully in the privacy of a bathroom. He wants Richie to be with someone who makes him proud to stand beside them. Eddie has always been proud of Richie, from day one—he’s just been unable to say it out loud for just as long. “You’re stewing, though,” Richie points out, shaking Eddie from his self-pitying reverie.

“Whatever…” Eddie sighs, and Richie’s smile only grows.

“Can I join you in there? Or am I exiled from Dicktown because Ben?” Eddie rolls his eyes.

“Isn’t he still out there? And even if he’s not, everyone will be back soon.” Richie shakes his head.

“Ben texted them to give us a half an hour. Told him to tell them we got in an argument we needed to work out.” Eddie eyes him curiously.

“Did we get in an argument?” Eddie asks carefully.

“I think that’s up to you, sunshine,” Richie says, still grinning, and Eddie melts.

“We’re fine,” Eddie assures with a small smile. “We’re more than fine.”

“Yeah?”

“Promise promise.” Richie’s smile only grows.

“So what do you say? You up for a little hanky-panky in the tub?”

“We didn’t finish what we started, and I’m not jacking off in the shower, that’s unsanitary. I can’t imagine how many people have done the same in here,” Eddie grimaces.

“Well, is sucking you off unsanitary?” Richie asks with a wolfish grin. Eddie ponders this.

“Not if you swallow,” he decides.

“Oh, I plan on it,” Richie smirks dangerously. They both start to undress, Eddie throwing his clothes on the floor outside the shower as Richie trips out of his jeans. They both chuckle as Richie hops around the small room, bumping into the sink in his attempt to hastily strip. Eddie swallows as Richie folds their clothes neatly and puts them on the counter.

“I do love you, you know…” he admits quietly, and he feels more exposed than he ever has before. He’s completely naked and admitting to the boy he’s loved for years that he does truly love him. He wants to be able to scream it from the rooftops, but he supposes these things take time. Richie looks up from where he’s tugging off his socks, and he smiles so softly and with so much fondness that Eddie’s heart stutters to a stop in his chest.

“I know,” he says quietly. He puts his socks next to Eddie’s on top of their clothes and steps into the shower, closing the curtain. He turns the shower on and it’s hot almost immediately—the power of hotel pipes. He takes the bar of shampoo that Eddie used this morning before leaving and begins working it into Eddie’s hair, swiping at the suds that threaten to fall in his eyes. He uses too much, used to having to use more for his long, thick curls, and the suds fall down the back of Eddie’s neck. He feels completely at peace.

“I love you, too,” Richie whispers with a smile. Eddie beams and closes his eyes after Richie turns him to the spray of water and works the shampoo out of his hair. Richie’s hands still their movements after a while, and when Eddie steps out of the water, his eyes open to find Richie staring down at him, marveling at him.

“The truth looks good on you, sweetheart.”

Eddie knows that a few weeks ago, these words would cause alarm and upset, possibly make him run from Richie again. But he stays rooted to the porcelain, and smiles back at Richie. He’s always thought that Richie deserves to find someone he’d be proud to stand next to, but he thinks with the kind of awe that can only come out of loving someone and the shock of knowing they love you back that maybe he already has.

**Author's Note:**

> here's [other places to find me](http://rebecca.carrd.co).


End file.
